As time passed, 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 three paddle steamers and 15 sail warships, and they actually had the absolute upper 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 entered the formation of several free ships anchored offshore.
These free ships didn't have heating boilers, so they could only stop where they were and get beaten - in fact, Datang Group's landing fleet never expected that the enemy would break through their own battleship defenses and get in front of 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 Liberty Ship fleet was far less serious than imagined.
Seeing the heavy losses of its 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 outside.
You know, in the eyes of the navy 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.
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And because there were gunshots 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, and a few of the cannonballs were embedded in the hull, but had no penetration effect.
On the other side, the short attack window that the main force of the Mirage Kingdom's southward fleet fought tooth and nail to win for them was wasted in this way.
By the time Bernard led the two Wolf-class cruisers 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 instantly destroyed, 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 battle? Why don't you get closer and fight to the death?"
In fact, more than ten minutes ago, he had already ordered the semaphore for the five sailing warships that rushed up to engage in battle.
But he didn't know whether it was because of the heavy smoke or some other reason. Those five warships... 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 a more powerful ironclad ship. In his opinion, there is no chance of turning defeat into victory in this battle.
Now the fleet of the Mirage Navy, including its flagship, has been completely paralyzed, and its three paddle steamers are just floating on the sea and lingering.
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 extinguished the naval admiral's illusions of 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, 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 the remaining less than 30 paddle steamers can barely fight with it.
If you want to keep your own territory, you need to purchase a large number of newer warships and buy more artillery... 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 deserves to 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 minor losses, Bernard was able to repulse the invading enemy fleet and secure the landing site.
Meanwhile, fighting on land has broken out.
On the south side of the landing site, the troops of the 1st Battalion launched a fierce battle with the three armies of the Mirage that came to attack.
Because there were a large number of automatic weapons, the 1st Battalion's defense line was established on the high ground on both sides of the road. The road was 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 withdrew from 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, and then the commander of Mirage Kingdom, Mirage Wu Baisui, discussed with Mirage Wuyuan, sent two battalions of troops, and launched another offensive.
The Mirage troops spread out in layers and rushed towards the defensive positions of the Datang Group's defenders at all costs.
And 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 a precise firing meter, has high shooting accuracy and powerful shells. It only took two rounds of volleys to teach the attacking Mirage troops what it means to be filled with artillery fire.
More than a dozen cannonballs fell almost at the same time and exploded among the crowd of goblins in Mirage Country. The feeling was so satisfying.
They lost more than 500 people without even touching the Datang Group's forward positions. Mirage Wu Baisui and Mirage Wuyuan finally realized the seriousness of the problem.
No matter how stupid they are, they can still 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! 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.
In Mirage Baisui's 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 force will inevitably be unable to care about each other. When that time comes, if he launches an attack again, the resistance will be much smaller than now.
But 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, and 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 Wuxiong's troops had launched a fierce attack on the 3rd Battalion.
Unfortunately, just like what happened to Mirage Baisui, Mirage Xiong'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 army was in front of him, and he could wait until Mirage Baisui launched an attack to disrupt the situation. After the enemy forces are deployed, take action yourself.
As a result, due to the inability to communicate and poor communication, the mirage's advantage of attacking from both sides disappeared, and the two sides became passive and fought independently.
What's even more ridiculous is that just like this, the Mirage's attacking troops wasted more than an hour of precious time, just standing there and waiting.
What's even more tragic is that they still don't know the news that their own fleet has actually been defeated. They also thought that if the fleet achieved victory, the enemy would be in chaos.
After all, if there is no dream in life, what is the difference between it and salted fish?
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Thank you to the readers for your "less than worse" and "superior O_o" rewards. Long Ling still owes me more, and I deserve it. Thank you both for your support. Thank you very much.
