In the battleship "Lorraine" with a carrying capacity of about 1,000 tons and equipped with 40 12-pound long guns, Vice Admiral Abraham Duquesne, a Huguenot entrusted by King Louis XIV of France, was talking with his The young Anna Hilarion de Cotan Tourville, chief of staff and captain of the Lorraine, was studying a very accurate chart of the Golden Gate Bay.
Vice Admiral Duquesne is worthy of being a veteran who has been in the military for nearly 40 years and has participated in countless naval battles. Even if the war is imminent, he appears to be very calm. But Tourville, who is only 31 years old this year, is a little restless.
Yes, just restless.
I can’t explain why, I just feel uneasy! Logically speaking, the sneak attack on Kinmen Bay is foolproof. Because this attack must have been completely unexpected by the Chinese... The French mainland is more than 10,000 nautical miles away from the coast of California, and it has to pass through some very dangerous waters to reach it.
It would have been fine if it was a worthless old battleship or an armed merchant ship, but who would have thought that King Louis and Chancellor De Wit had spent a lot of money and sent out a total of 20 cutting-edge battleships (fast sailing battleships)?
These 20 new warships account for almost 30% of the capital of the French and Italian navies. Under normal circumstances, it is impossible for them to travel so far to participate in the war. But they spent more than half a year sailing, going through countless dangers and obstacles, and completed more than 10,000 nautical miles. There was even a battleship that ran aground during the voyage and had to be overhauled in Acapulco, making it impossible to participate in this expedition!
Not to mention that the Emperor of Ming Dynasty and the King of Xinzhou United States would not have thought of it. Even Vice Admiral Duquesne himself was shocked when he heard about this crazy expedition plan from Louis XIV.
However, after carefully studying this crazy plan, Vice Admiral Duquesne felt that the probability of success was extremely high!
Moreover, this plan is the best for France, New Spain and the Netherlands to join forces to expel the Chinese from North America, and it is also the plan with the highest probability of success.
After all, this plan is surprising enough!
No one would have thought that France and the Netherlands would do this. This is really crazy!
Therefore, it is impossible for the Ming Navy to deploy a huge naval fleet on the west coast of North America that is large enough to fight against the combined fleet of the three countries - a fleet composed of 100 battleships, with 20,000 to 30,000 sailors alone!
For a country with a population of just over one million, it would be an extremely heavy burden to have an additional 20 to 30,000 well-paid navy personnel to feast on, let alone pay these people.
Moreover, placing such a large fleet on the Pacific coast does not make much sense to the Ming Empire.
After all, the navy is an offensive branch... Spending millions of taels to build 100 warships and spending hundreds of thousands or millions in maintenance costs every year, and then putting them in Kinmen Port for defense, is not wrong. ?
If we have this little money, wouldn’t it be enough to build more forts in Kinmen Bay and the Bay of America? Spending hundreds of thousands of taels can make Kinmen Bay and the Gulf of America indestructible.
In fact, the Chinese did not spend that much money on repairing the coastal defense fortresses in Kinmen Bay... The ports on the American Gulf are very tightly guarded, but they did not invest much on the Kinmen Bay side - in fact The local tyrant king has long made a construction plan to strengthen the defense of Kinmen Bay, but there is a shortage of labor in the New Island Continent, so everything is slow. In addition, the local tycoon's plan to advance eastward has taken up too much labor, so so far, the Xinzhou Naval Department has only built a fort at the Kinmen Strait at the entrance of the bay.
However, the invading fleet would still have to pay a huge price if it forced its way into the Kinmen Strait during the day. However, using the cover of night, the Spaniards' familiarity with the topography and hydrology of the Kinmen Bay, and a genius enough attack plan, the raid could still be successful... ...
The raid should be successful!
The fleets of the United States of New Zealand and the Ming Dynasty Navy anchored in Kinmen Bay should be dead ends - according to reliable intelligence, their strength is at most half of the combined fleets of France, the Netherlands, and Spain!
Even without a surprise attack, the combined fleets of France, the Netherlands, and Spain could annihilate them all.
If all the Chinese fleets in Kinmen Bay are annihilated, the combined fleets of France, the Netherlands, and Spain will cooperate with the subsequent landing fleets (all composed of old merchant ships) to attack the Kinmen Fortress and completely seize Kinmen Bay.
Once Kinmen Bay is captured by the French, Dutch, and Spanish coalition forces, the United States of New Zealand will be half dead, if not dead.
The remaining half of life will be taken care of by the coalition forces of the "Great Soviet Union", France, and New Spain!
But Tourville's heart was still shrouded in a strong sense of uneasiness...
Abraham Duquesne did not notice that Tourville was uneasy. He just turned around and asked, "How far are we from the Golden Gate Strait?"
Tourville: "There are still about 100 nautical miles. If the wind direction does not change, we will reach outside the Golden Gate Strait tonight!"
Lieutenant General Abraham Duquesne's eyes returned to the chart. The entrance to the Golden Gate Strait was very narrow, only about one nautical mile wide. The southern shore of the strait is a very narrow peninsula with a triangular protrusion. The Chinese built a bastion there and set up 10-20 12-pound long-barreled bronze cannons, which could be used to block the strait.
Lieutenant General Abraham Duquesne was silent for a moment and smiled: "Now it depends on whether Barbosa and his Spanish mortar fleet can succeed!"
"It must be possible!" Although Tourville was extremely uneasy, he still said with certainty, "Although we were discovered by the Chinese watchtower when passing through the Baja California Peninsula... But it doesn't matter, they Too late to react.
Barbossa, his fleet and marines will definitely succeed! God will definitely bless him! "
...
September 11th, night.
15 mortar boats with a carrying capacity of more than 100 tons, driven by the southwesterly wind with long oars, cut through the night and sailed on the sea west of the Kinmen Peninsula.
Rear Admiral Barbosa of the New Spanish Navy stood on the bow of one of the mortar ships, holding on to the railing, holding his head high and looking at the outline of the Golden Gate Fortress in the night ahead. There were words in his mouth, and he was reciting "The Psalm of Mary" loudly. When he was the most excited when he read it, his eyes filled with enthusiasm.
Behind him, dozens of sailors were rowing hard, and dozens of marines wearing half-breasted breastplates, all kneeling on the deck, holding ropes in their hands, chanting "The Psalm of Mary"... ...These people are all Spanish veterans from the European continent. Most of them come from the long-defunct Spanish Netherlands Regiment. Before the Heritage War, this army had been stationed in the Spanish Netherlands for a long time and participated in the Eighth Route Army. The elite troops of the Ten Years' War, the Thirty Years' War, the Franco-Spanish War, the Anglo-Spanish War, and the Heritage War, although they could not escape the tragic ending in the end. But the long-term war has undoubtedly tempered a group of warriors who are good at fighting and who believe in God!
It is no exaggeration to say that these Spanish veterans can definitely be regarded as the best warriors of this era! The defeat they encountered in Europe was entirely caused by the mistakes of the religious kings of Spain, not the fault of these veterans.
Of course, they are also religious fanatics and are willing to sacrifice everything for their faith in God...otherwise they would not have traveled across the ocean to New Spain to follow their old leader Don Juan Jose.
The task given to them by Don Juan Jose was to suppress or capture the Golden Gate Fortress with extremely difficult means to cover the raiding fleet into the Golden Gate Bay.
In the darkness, the outline of the Golden Gate Fortress grew larger and larger... Suddenly, many flowing firelights appeared on the walls of the fortress!
Obviously, the Chinese are still quite vigilant... However, their vigilance will not change anything! Because Major General Barbossa knew very well that the surprise attack had been successful.
The mortar fleet he led has already approached the beach and will soon beach, and the beach beach will definitely be successful.
Once the 15 mortars complete the beaching, up to 15 36-pound heavy mortars will fire at the Golden Gate Fortress. There are also 50 veterans from the Netherlands Army on each mortar ship...a total of 750 veterans, who can definitely block the attack of the Ming army several times their own.
