Is there a situation?
After hearing the report from the people below, the navy lieutenant named Wang Zuo quickly closed the lid of the military kettle, threw it aside, and ran up the mast with his bare feet. Looking at his agility, he was almost like a monkey. .
After climbing to the top of the pole, Wang Zuo immediately raised his telescope and looked east. After a little search, he found several black smoke pillars floating on the sea level - at a glance, he knew that they were exhaust gases emitted by British coal stoves!
After a while, there were more and more smoke pillars on the sea. There were twenty or thirty pillars, which were almost blocking the sky and the sun! Tall triangular masts also began to appear. What was faintly fluttering on the mast was the cross-red striped flag of the East India Company. Now this flag was taken by the Indian Empire and became the Indian flag!
From the size and shape of the masts, Wang Zuo has already identified that these are two British-produced Blake-class armored cruisers and four more advanced Arrogant-class armored cruisers. There are at least eight second- and third-class cruisers following them, and there should be more. The destroyers follow. This is a typical outpost fleet in front of a large formation!
There should be a battleship formation of the Indian Grand Fleet 20 nautical miles to the rear. This naval academic who was last in the exam (all academics who can pass the exam) quickly guessed the deployment of forces on the Indian Grand Fleet. However, he could only guess that there was no way to see it. The outpost fleet of the Royal Indian Navy would come to arrest people and destroy the ship.
I only saw him coiled on the mast with a serious expression, looking around and mumbling: "The outpost formation has almost 20 ships, and the main formation following it should be more powerful. The main force of the Indian fleet should have arrived!" Depending on the situation, the British still want to force our Persian Gulf Fleet away, but our Persian Gulf Fleet exists, not does not exist, and it is not that easy to drive us away!"
As Wang Zuo spoke, he slid down from the mast and gave a loud order: "Generator to generate electricity! Set up the radio antenna and report to the torpedo boat brigade headquarters! There are eight enemy armored cruisers, eight cruisers, and ten to twelve destroyers. Directions East longitude XXX, north latitude XXX appeared in the eastern sea of the Gulf of Oman on the sixth day of October! The enemy ship's speed is about 10 knots. Whether there is still a battleship formation requires further observation."
There were beads of sweat rolling down his forehead. He was a little nervous, but more excited. Finally, he cursed fiercely in his mouth: "Damn it, these Yingyi finally came to seek death!" "
He didn't say this casually, because the Ming Dynasty's Persian Gulf Fleet had no intention of being a quietly existing fleet from the beginning - An Anjing was a "non-existent fleet", and a fleet must have a sense of existence. If you can draw hatred, you can make your opponent hate him till the very end of his teeth, but you can't get rid of him.
This is the successful existence fleet!
In order to become a successful existence fleet, the Ming Dynasty's Persian Gulf Fleet has been holding back from the beginning to make mistakes, and their strength is not too weak. There are 8 battleships, 4 shallow water gunboats, 5 "small patrols", 8 fast patrols (actually only 189 knots), 8 sail landing ships, 2 minelayers, and Twenty torpedo boats of several hundred tons and twelve fast torpedo boats equipped with small steam turbines - this is a trump card!
Because the Logistics Bureau of the Ming Navy has sent them 24 powerful and top-secret steam gas torpedoes via ultra-long-range airships from Yining-Xianmenguan-Tehran-Muscat. !
Don't underestimate this number. Once used, Emperor William will know what the real "existence fleet" is!
At this time, the communications soldier on the fishing boat where Wang Zuo was on had already set up the antenna, installed the hand-cranked generator, and also took out a spark transmitter and began to send messages ticking.
This transmitting device, plus the ore receiving machine, is the flagship product of Tongling Telecom controlled by Zhuge Shijia and Dentsu Industry controlled by Zheng Shijia. Although Europe has also developed the same product, its technology is far inferior to that of Ming Dynasty. The transceiver is mature and the output is not enough. It cannot be "cabbageized" yet, and it is difficult to iterate quickly.
And "cabbageization" and rapid iteration are the most powerful golden fingers of Ming Dynasty!
After all, the Ming Empire was an industrialized empire with a population of 360 million! It also has a complete system of compulsory education and higher education, and it produces more science students every year than all other countries in the world combined. Therefore, Ming Dynasty also has the largest number of skilled workers and engineers in the world!
Fortunately, there is no such deep globalization in this era, and the intellectual property protection system of Western countries is not perfect (basically non-existent), so they can use tariffs and non-tariff barriers to block the very competitive Daming products, and at the same time, they can blatantly Plagiarism. Otherwise, their industrial system would have been shattered to pieces!
However, it is precisely because of the existence of such barriers and plagiarism that it also protects Daming's industrial chain. Daming's low value-added industries will not transfer to Europe, and Daming will not open the door to Europe's low-value products without reservation.
And this is also the main reason why world war is inevitable - the East and the West have now formed two large semi-closed circles and a small semi-closed circle.
It is difficult for an industrial and commercial group in one circle to enter another circle, unless the circle it is in swallows up other circles. The only way to obtain new markets and raw material collection places is military expansion!
When the industrialization of the Ming Empire reached a certain height, so that the market and resources on the 18 million square kilometers of mainland and millions of square kilometers of vassal lands owned by Ming Dynasty were not enough, they would of course have to break through others. Circled.
And this kind of behavior that breaks through other people's circles will of course cause others to fight back!
A psychic brand spark telegraph machine quickly conveyed the news that the Indian Grand Fleet had arrived to the Persian Gulf Fleet land headquarters in Muscat - the main force of the Persian Gulf Fleet could retract into the Persian Gulf and at the same time be in Harbin. Naval bases, naval shipyards and onshore barracks have been established in Ras Al-Ima, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and other places. However, these projects cannot be completed in a few months; they must be constructed over a long period of time. Before completion, Muscat, the capital of the Sultanate of Oman, was still a cozy home for family members of the military and a good place for officers and soldiers to rest.
In addition, there is a dock in Muscat that can repair and scrape the bottom of a "giant ship" of 10,000 tons. This is really important for the Persian Gulf Fleet, which has more than a dozen "giant ships". .
Therefore, Li Chenghui was reluctant to give up Muscat unless he had to. Therefore, his headquarters is still in Muscat. He has also set up positions near the port of Muscat, deployed some artillery and marines, and deployed mines around the port of Muscat.
After learning that the Indian fleet was approaching, Li Chenghui notified the country through the long-wave radio station and sent two Feilong III ships to conduct reconnaissance.
Three hours later, he received another telegram, which not only confirmed the report of the reconnaissance fishing boat, but also increased the number of battleships to 10, and there were another thirty or forty ships of various types!
This time Emperor William of the Indian Empire is very likely to take action!
(End of chapter)
