Chapter 1122 Five routes
In fact, it is understandable that these pirates are depressed, after all, Major Giovanni interrogated these people all night.
The interrogation of this era is very simple and crude, in short, it can be summed up in four words: "torture and forced confession".
Although this approach is prone to false and wrongful convictions, it is just right for dealing with enemies.
Giovanni's method is not very clever, just one word: "beat", beat to death.
These pirates were beaten all night, it would be strange if their mental state was good.
Friedrich originally wanted to hear whether there would be some differences between authentic pirates, but Grand Duchess Sineka had no good feelings for these pirates at all. After all, the pirates in the Gulf of Aden were the biggest headache for the Oman Empire.
Especially these pirates are British, Grand Duchess Sineka should hate them whether she is an Omani or an Austrian.
Before the trial, Baron Heyman had thought about dying rather than surrendering, and then speaking a few passionate words, but after hearing a few creepy screams, he immediately changed his mind. Maybe he could use his intelligence to mislead the Austrians with some false information.
As a result, after being slapped dozens of times by two strong men with wooden boards, he told everything he knew in one go. He just wanted to end his pain quickly.
Of course, there were also tough guys, such as Captain Callum, Baron Heyman's immediate superior, who refused to confess any information after being nailed with more than 20 nails all over his body. Out of respect, Major Giovanni gave him a bullet.
However, most people were not so loyal to the British government, and they quickly spit out their information.
As for how to distinguish the truth from the falsehood of intelligence, just take a few confessions and compare them. Unless someone can collude in advance, it is difficult to forge.
The way to deal with those liars is to execute them directly. Of course, the war between two countries does not necessarily do this to prisoners, but there is no need to talk about morality for pirates.
After all, if you reason with these pirates, then who can the Austrian sailors who were previously tortured by them talk to?
The most unlucky among them were the Portuguese who wanted to make money from the British. This time, not only did they lose all their investment, but they also became accomplices of the pirates inexplicably.
No matter how they tried to distance themselves from the British, Major Giovanni would not let them go. After all, once the news leaked, it would be a disaster for Friedrich's fleet.
According to Major Giovanni's report, the Austrian side lost 8 people in this battle, 25 people were missing, more than 300 enemies were killed, 272 people were captured, two cruisers, 13 cargo ships, and more than 2,000 tons of cargo were seized.
However, there should be enemies hiding on the island, with a number of about 20 to 50.
Friedrich nodded. Such a result did not surprise or surprise him. He just felt sorry for the 8 dead soldiers and 25 missing people.
In fact, the so-called missing people were most likely lost at sea. They did not bring too many supplies and their hope of survival was extremely slim.
"Send a message to the country, tell His Majesty Franz that the pirate problem has been solved, and we can start the next step."
"Yes, sir!"
Captain Michel's ship is a little special. His warship is not equipped with weapons, nor is it heavy armor. Everything on his ship is for speed.
Captain Michel is in charge of a messenger ship. His mission is one-way communication, in order to send the fleet's news to the country as quickly as possible.
"Commander, according to intelligence, the British pirates have at least five bases. Isn't it too early for us to send a victory report now?"
Major Giovanni questioned. Although he admired the young naval commander very much, he did not think it was easy to wipe out the remaining pirates.
According to Giovanni's estimate, it would take a week or even longer to clear out the remaining pirates on this island.
And the remaining five bases of British pirates are not on this island, but distributed on five different islands.
Unless the enemies on the five islands can be eliminated at the same time, once the enemies escape, it will be like a fish in the sea, like a bird in the forest, and there is no way to start.
"No! Not early at all. It will take at least a week for the news to reach Vienna from here, and we will wipe out all the pirates within three days."
The difficulty in eliminating pirates is not the battle itself, but how to find the pirates' hiding place.
Now that the location of the pirate base is known, Friedrich plans to directly divide his troops into five routes to launch a full-scale attack.
This is a plan that sounds extremely crazy. After all, in theory, the most taboo in naval warfare is to divide troops for fighting.
But Friedrich is very confident in his battle plan. Seeing a small part can reveal the whole picture. Those so-called pirates are obviously too confident. They don't think that the Austrians can find them, so they don't even have the most basic vigilance.
In fact, it's not the fault of these British people. Being discovered on the sea is a low-probability event. What's more, they have the amulet of a third-party neutral country, so they are completely fearless.
In addition, Friedrich is very confident in his subordinates and ships. Since 1846, the shipyard of the Austrian Imperial Navy has never stopped.
The performance of these new steam ironclad warships was overwhelming that of traditional wooden sailing warships, and they could crush British warships in all aspects, whether in attack, defense, or speed.
Ten years of hard work also allowed Friedrich to train a large number of qualified sailors, and the myth of being invincible gave them absolute confidence.
Of course, this was also due to Franz, after all, he provided Friedrich with a solution to the problem more than a hundred years later.
For ordinary people, exposure to too advanced knowledge may make them confused and helpless, but for a small number of geniuses, this is just a booster for their growth.
In fact, the British pirate tactics at this time were a kind of special operations, but their methods were still quite primitive.
They performed so badly when facing the Austrian special forces that had been truly trained for a long time, had rich combat experience and were well-equipped.
Before the British figured out the mode of special operations, this was the most efficient tactic at this time.
The main goal of the special forces was to confirm the location and number of the enemy, because the pirates could not stay on the island all the time. In addition to launching attacks after receiving intelligence from the Portuguese, they would also wander around the sea and look for targets.
Franz's goal was to cut the grass and eradicate the roots, so the best situation was to launch an attack when the enemy returned to the port and then wipe out the enemy.
In Vienna, Franz convened an imperial conference immediately after receiving Friedrich's "good news".
This was the first official imperial conference after Franz ascended the throne. Usually, the new emperor would announce the pardon of some criminals, reduce some taxes, and show goodwill to all parties to show the royal benevolence.
Some oppressed nobles were very excited. They felt that the emperor was finally going to bow his head. Sure enough, people would change!
Some Hungarian parties were even more excited because they felt that Franz would definitely negotiate with Hungary, because nothing could show his benevolence better than a truce.
However, what Franz wanted to announce was that the Austrian Empire officially declared war on the Ottoman Empire.