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Even if the landing force is completely wiped out, as long as the main attack momentum is launched, the Ming Dynasty can be convinced that the main force of the Royal Indian Navy is in the Gulf of Oman, and the purpose of the Muscat Battle will be achieved.
Who cares about the sacrifice of the Indian warriors who landed? Even the lives of a small number of white-skinned officers and mercenaries were not cared about by the superior rulers of the British Empire.
Because the British Empire in this era was a complete bourgeois government, the House of Commons in power was elected by hundreds of thousands of wealthy people in the United Kingdom. These people occupied most of the land in the British Isles and almost all of the United Kingdom. of factories and banks, controlling finance and overseas trade.
Most of them will not enter the military camp at all - there is no compulsory military service in the UK, and only some shield nobles who have been in the army for generations among the upper class will become officers, and most of the officer positions in the UK can be obtained by qualified personnel. What the aristocratic young people bought with their money was donated classes!
Ordinary people, except for those who are too poor to take the blame, would join the army for the meager military pay. The superior people of Ansar (actually they are descendants of the Normans) who believe in social Darwinism (in fact, social Darwinism exists in the bone marrow of the Ansar people and appeared earlier than Darwin) will not care at all about these betrayals. The life and death of the poor people at the bottom who went to the battlefield with a few small coins, otherwise the British Empire in history would not have caused the Great Famine in Ireland at the height of its glory.
In addition, another purpose of launching the Muscat landing battle was to explore the trump card in Ming's hand.
The torpedo speedboats that launched the attack just now and the "long-range high-speed torpedoes" they launched are the trump cards in the hands of Daming!
However, what Emperor William and Marquis Nelson were most interested in and worried about were the Ming Empire's aerial weapons - no matter how powerful the Ming's torpedo boats were, they could only carry out sneak attacks in the offshore and could not be used in the ocean. And even if the large fleet is fighting in the near sea, it will not be difficult to defend against torpedo boats. All it takes is to build more gunboats. The British Empire has long had speedboats that use steam turbines and can run more than 30 knots.
But if the Ming Empire had a human-operated gliding torpedo, then Emperor William's decisive battle plan would not be able to be carried out. Think about it, this human-operated gliding torpedo is more powerful than a human-operated gliding bomb!
So when Codrington said "I'm not afraid of sacrifice", he was actually very worried in his heart. He was afraid that dozens of airships would fly over with manned gliding torpedoes, which would cause big trouble.
"Admiral, urgent call from the armored cruiser HMS Insolence! Dozens of small airships were spotted flying towards the Muscat coast from the direction of Ras Al Khaimah!"
When the early morning sun shone on the beach in Muscat, the armored cruiser Insolence cruising in the northern Gulf of Oman sent an urgent message about the discovery of the Ming Army airship group!
Admiral Codrington was holding a telescope at this time, concentrating on the ongoing landing operation.
Although the Ming Army's previous torpedo boat attacks sank two armored cruisers, two second- and third-class cruisers of the Indian Grand Fleet, and severely damaged a second-class cruiser, for the Indian Grand Fleet with dozens of old ships In fact, this loss is still bearable.
The landing operation was not greatly affected. More than a dozen troop carriers on the sea still followed the original plan, and under the cover of more than a dozen destroyers and gunboats, they sent out small boats to carry the landing British and Indian officers and soldiers toward the Muscat beach in waves. go.
The terrain near Muscat is not conducive to a landing battle. There is a long and gentle coastline in this area heading northwest. The Ming army simply did not have enough troops to deploy defenses, and the Sultanate of Oman also had a small population and could not support the mainland army. Therefore, they have always been guarding Muscat and some nearby ports to expand externally by sea when they are strong, and shrink into the nearby Hajar Mountains when they are at a disadvantage.
With the strength of the Ming Army in the Persian Gulf, when the Indian Empire exerts its utmost determination to launch an offensive, it can only retreat to the Hajar Mountains, Ras Al Khaimah, and Qeshm Island, blocking the Strait of Hormuz and the coming Fight a protracted battle with your opponent.
Therefore, when the defenders discovered that the torpedo boat attack failed to scare off the opponent, they did not persist on the beach. They just used 155mm cannons to bombard the beach where the British and Indian troops landed for a while. After running out of ammunition, they began to attack the Hajar Mountains. The stronghold inside has been moved.
The Sultan Sultan of Muscat, Sultan Sultan of Oman, had long led his men to run Oman's territory of Zanzibar in Africa. Zanzibar in later generations was just an island, but in its heyday, it included Africa. There is a lot of potential in the "big territory" along the east coastline and the northern part of Madagascar (the seaside area).
After hearing the news of the incoming airship, Admiral Codrington immediately became nervous - after the Battle of Kii, the invincible British Royal Navy was already a bit phobic about Ming airships!
There were dozens of airships at once, and each airship had to have 10 people on board to operate gliding bombs or gliding torpedoes. That was hundreds!
Moreover, the latest version of the British army's man-operated gliding bomb has been installed with a 30-horsepower five-cylinder rotor radial engine. If the Ming Dynasty had the same equipment, it would only be more powerful!
Thinking of this, Admiral Codrington immediately issued an order: "Suspend landing operations. All ships must form an air defense formation immediately!"
"Yes, sir!"
The so-called air defense formation is a large ship or transport ship as the center, surrounded by a circle of destroyers, second- and third-class cruisers or gunboats. The large ship and transport ship take a Z-shaped avoidance route inside, while the small ship uses anti-aircraft artillery and air defense outside. Raise your gun and hit the airship.
This kind of air defense tactic has been practiced by the British and Indian navies in the past two years. After Admiral Codrington gave the order, more than twenty "small circles" were formed in the sea off Muscat every moment. "All kinds of anti-aircraft artillery and anti-aircraft guns were set up.
If those airships in the sky dare to lower their altitude for bombing, they will be living targets!
However, Admiral Codrington still did not dare to take it lightly. He just stood at the window of the bridge and looked at the sky through the telescope for about half an hour. When he saw that his neck was a little sore, suddenly, one after another appeared in the telescope. "A little bit."
"airship!"
"It looks very small, not as big as the Flying Dragon Type 3."
"This should be Ming Dynasty's new airship, right?"
The staff and staff around Codrington were already talking about it.
Codrington himself also discovered that the airships in the sky were different from the larger Flying Dragon III. They seemed to be much smaller in size, and the cockpit under the air cabin was also smaller. There should be no internal magazine. There were also two flying wings on both sides of the cockpit. There was an engine and a propeller hanging under each flying wing, and there seemed to be two bombs.
Dozens of airships have formed a relatively dense formation in the air, and they seem to be ready for bombing!
However, Codrington breathed a sigh of relief and said with a smile: "It seems that there are only airships, and no one operates gliding bombs or gliding torpedoes. It seems that Ming Dynasty has lagged behind our British Empire in the sky!"
(End of chapter)
