Chapter 418: 418 A person must have dreams
Chapter 418 418 A person must have dreams
As time passed by, Mirage's navy warships indeed entered the landing site. However, the trouble they caused to the Datang Group's naval transport fleet was not as much as imagined.
The three Bunas-class ironclads left behind were currently fighting with 3 paddle steamers and 15 sailing warships. In fact, they had the absolute upper hand.
Hand in front of them, the mirage navy fleet with superior numbers was already filled with smoke and had almost lost its combat effectiveness.
But because there were too many enemy ships, five sail warships took advantage of the chaos to bypass the battlefield and join the formation of several free ships anchored offshore.
These free ships do not yet have heating boilers, so they can only stop where they are and be beaten - in fact, the Datang Group's landing fleet did not expect that the enemy would break through their own battleship defenses and attack them.
For a moment, the fleet sailors who were still washing were dumbfounded and could only watch these tall sailing warships wreaking havoc outside the fleet.
Of course, they couldn't just watch. Soon soldiers took out their rifles and began to stand on the side of the ship and fire to prevent these enemy sail warships from approaching.
Soon the sound of gunfire spread across the sea, followed by the rumble of cannon fire. It seemed that the landing fleet was in danger this time.
But the fact is that the damage caused by the Mirage's five sail warships to the Datang Group's Free Shipping fleet was far less serious than imagined.
Seeing the heavy losses of their main fleet, the Mirage warships did not dare to rush into the middle of the unknown Freeship fleet, so they could only fire artillery attacks from the periphery.
You know, in the eyes of the naval commanders of the Mirage Kingdom, these giant ships parked on the sea can almost scare them in terms of size.
Just looking at these behemoths, which were twice the size of battleships, these mirage goblins felt in awe and were so timid that they stopped moving forward.
And because there were gunfire on the ship, they did not dare to rush forward recklessly and risk their lives to start a boarding battle. Therefore, shelling with solid bullets from the muzzleloader became what they thought was the safest way of attack.
As a result...these solid bullets did not have a good effect when they hit the tall side of the freewheel.
Most of the cannonballs were bounced away directly. A few of the cannonballs were embedded in the hull and had no penetration effect.
On the other side, the short attack window that the main force of the Mirage Fleet's southward fleet risked their lives to win for them was wasted in this way.
By the time Bernard led two Wolf-class cruisers to fight back to the landing site, the five sailing battleships could not do anything to the Liberty Ship Fleet...
Immediately afterwards, they were violently attacked by the Datang Group's cruiser fleet, and the entire naval battle instantly turned into a massacre at sea.
The commander of the Mirage Navy watched helplessly as the five sail warships hovering outside the enemy's parked fleet were destroyed in an instant, and he almost vomited blood from anger.
He stood on the deck, squinting through the drifting black smoke, pointing at the sunken sailing fleet in the distance and yelling: "Asshole! Coward! Why don't you engage in a fight? Why don't you get closer and fight to the death?"
In fact, more than ten minutes ago, he had given the order to send a signal and let the five sailing battleships rush up to engage in battle.
But I don’t know whether it was due to too much smoke or some other reason. Those five battleships... obviously did not carry out his orders.
"The only chance...the only chance!" the naval commander rapped on the ship's railing and lamented in frustration.
He has already sent out the news that the enemy has more powerful ironclad ships. In his opinion, there is no chance of turning defeat into victory in this battle.
Now the Mirage Navy fleet, including its flagship, has been completely paralyzed, and its three paddle steamers are just floating on the sea and struggling to survive.
Two-thirds of the remaining 20 sail warships have actually sunk, and the remaining ones are already waiting to die.
The opponent's warships were almost unscathed, which completely gave up the admiral's illusions about turning defeat into victory.
What he can do now is to spread the news back to the country as soon as possible and remind the leader of the Mirage Kingdom to carefully examine this sudden war!
In his opinion, the mirage cannot win this war. If the navy loses, Dongwan Island cannot be saved no matter what. This is an inevitable result and cannot be changed by the bravery of a few people.
The only thing that can cause trouble for our opponents is the 130mm main gun on the paddle steamer. The rest of the weapons are almost a joke.
Although the 75mm breech-loading cannon has a sufficient rate of fire, its power is very weak and cannot damage enemy warships at all... As for those Cyric muzzle-loading cannons that seem to be useless, they are actually useless at all.
Thinking of this, the commander of the Mirage Navy couldn't help but feel desperate. He looked at his own fleet with thick smoke and couldn't stop crying.
The enemy has such a powerful fleet, which is almost equivalent to saying that the mirage's thousands of miles of sea territory has become an undefended existence.
The seemingly huge naval fleet has become a display, and only less than 30 paddle steamers can barely compete with it. If you want to keep your own territory, you will need to purchase a large number of newer warships and more artillery pieces... Can the Mirage afford all of this?
After thinking wildly, the general slammed the ship's railing with his hand and cursed loudly: "I heard that this war was caused by this bastard, Mirage Kazuo? He should be killed! Bastard! He should commit suicide to apologize!"
Just as he was cursing loudly, a cannonball struck, hitting his position. The huge explosion swallowed him and the deck under his feet, leaving only two parts of the warship, still floating stubbornly on the sea. .
Although there were some slight losses, Bernard finally managed to repel the invading enemy fleet and secured the landing site.
Meanwhile, fighting on land had also broken out.
The troops of the 1st Battalion fought fiercely on the south side of the landing site with the three armies of the Mirage that came to attack.
Because there are a large number of automatic weapons, the 1st Battalion's defense line is established on the high ground on both sides of the road. The road is blocked with cross fire, forming a mutually dependent in-depth defense position.
The attacking Mirage troops had never seen such a defense line before. Their first attack was repulsed without even knowing where the enemy was.
More than 200 corpses were hastily discarded on the road, and these mirage goblins left the battlefield with howling ghosts and wolves.
Then they started shelling, shelling aimlessly. Because the Datang Group's defensive position was on high ground, those forward-firing muzzleloaders did not cause any damage at all.
To put it bluntly, the enemy is just firing artillery to embolden themselves, and it has no practical significance at all. This tactic is prohibited by order within the Datang Group, because precious artillery shells are not meant to be squandered like this.
The two sides were in a stalemate for more than half an hour. Then the commander of Mirage Kingdom, Mirage Wu Baisui, discussed with Mirage Wuyuan, sent two battalions of troops, and launched another fierce attack.
The Mirage troops spread out layer by layer and rushed towards the defensive position of the Datang Group defenders regardless of risk.
Then...then they were defeated again without even being hit by machine gun fire! Because under the guidance of the observation post, the battalion's mortar unit allowed the opponent to see what modern artillery is.
The Datang Group's artillery, which has an accurate firing meter, has high shooting accuracy and powerful artillery shells. It only took two rounds of volleys to teach the attacking Mirage troops what it means to be filled with artillery fire.
A dozen cannonballs fell almost at the same time and exploded among the crowd of goblins in the Mirage Country. The feeling was so refreshing.
Even without touching the forward position of Datang Group, more than 500 people were lost. Mirage Wu Baisui and Mirage Wuyuan finally realized the seriousness of the problem.
No matter how stupid they are, they can see that the troops in front of them have nothing to do with Zheng Guo, and they are not enemies they can deal with!
So, they decided...wait!
Yes, wait a minute! They were prepared to wait in place for two hours, waiting for the friendly forces in the north to launch an attack and disperse the enemy's forces before they took action.
From Mirage Wu Baisui's point of view, the reason why this army is so strong is because they have placed their main force directly in front of them.
As long as the friendly forces in the north, that is, the troops commanded by Mirage Bear, arrive and start attacking, this enemy army will inevitably be unable to look at each other. When that time comes, if he launches an attack again, the resistance will be much smaller than now.
What he didn’t know was that after blocking two attacks and finding that the Mirage troops were motionless, the 1st regiment commander immediately started mobilizing his own troops.
The 2nd Battalion began to move along the edge of the battlefield in the direction of Fengshun City. In terms of situation, it had begun to encircle Mirage Wuyuan and Mirage Centenary's troops.
On the other side, in fact, more than an hour ago, Mirage Bear's troops had launched a fierce attack on the 3rd Battalion.
It is a pity that, just like what happened to Mirage Wu Baisui, Mirage Bear's troops also suffered serious setbacks during the attack and also lost hundreds of soldiers.
Under such circumstances, Mirage Wuxiong made almost the same judgment as Mirage Baisui - he believed that the main force of the enemy's army was in front of him, and he could wait until Mirage Baisui launched an attack to disrupt the enemy. You can take action yourself after the army is deployed.
Since then, due to the inability to communicate and poor communication, the mirage's advantage of attacking from both sides has disappeared, and the two sides have become passive and fighting independently.
What’s even more ridiculous is that in this way, the Mirage’s attacking troops wasted more than an hour of precious time, standing still and waiting.
What’s even more tragic is that they still don’t know the news that their own fleet has actually suffered a disastrous defeat. They also thought that if the fleet achieved victory, the enemy would be in chaos.
After all, if you don’t have dreams as a human being, what’s the difference between that and salted fish? —
I would like to thank the readers for the "less than worse" and "overflowing O_o" rewards. Long Ling still owes me more, and I deserve it. Thank you both for your support. Thank you very much.
(End of this chapter)