Dominate the Country

"Boom boom..."

A huge firework bloomed on the deck of the Portuguese ship. In the rumbling explosion, countless people were lifted up by the powerful shock wave, and the gunpowder barrels on their deck were detonated.

Several people on the command platform were thrown and hit the bulkhead. The helmsman in the command platform was the first person to recover from the explosion. With a pain on his forehead, the first thing he saw was the command platform that looked like it had been destroyed by a storm.

The broken wood chips and papers such as charts, notebooks, and the people in the command platform were all swept into the corner like garbage.

But fortunately, no one died. Everyone was groaning, but obviously they were still alive. The captain's arm was swept by a piece of wood in the explosion just now, but it was obviously not very deep into the flesh, and there was not much blood. He himself did not have any injuries on his upper body, but it seemed that something scratched his thigh, and the blood dyed his pants black and red. It was very strange!

The upper body was completely exposed, only the forehead was hit, but there was no blood. The lower body covered by the ship wall did bleed a lot.

The helmsman hurriedly supported the captain, who didn't know where he got the strength from, and stood up. With the help of the helmsman, he staggered to the window. What appeared in front of them was thick black smoke.

The bow of the merchant ship was hit, and the triangular bow seemed to have been bitten. Thick black smoke rose, and there was a faint flame.

The sailors on the ship were already using water pumps to pump seawater to put out the fire.

Busyness and black smoke became the theme of the front deck at this moment. It also made the captain truly understand a fact that he really had no chance of escaping the disaster.

"Sir, the Chinese sent a message to let us drop the sails and surrender. As long as we don't resist anymore, they will guarantee the safety of our personnel."

A white sailor with no trace of blood on his face ran over and said.

The captain, who had already witnessed the terrible situation at the bow, had a flash of pain on his face. In this situation, he was at the mercy of others. What else could he do? He had no choice.

Guan Tianpei on the Egret was looking at the turret at the bow at this time, feeling very satisfied.

After seeing the tragedy at the bow of the Portuguese merchant ship, Guan Tianpei was only glad that the front and rear main guns on the Egret were turret structures. With this turret, he no longer had to worry about the bow and stern being blown up by the detonated gunpowder barrels.

Although the turret structure was ugly, making the overall layout of the warship look rigid, and making the warship weigh dozens of tons more, affecting the speed, coal storage and other performance, but now this result is enough to prove the wisdom of this choice.

When night officially fell, there was no trace of the Portuguese merchant ship on the sea. In addition to large pieces of floating chores and waste, there was not even a small boat.

However, Guan Tianpei was not a bloodthirsty maniac who killed people without blinking an eye. There were as many as one or two hundred sailors on the Portuguese merchant ships, tied up and thrown on the decks of the Egret and Swift, instead of sinking to the bottom of the sea.

The two ships left the entrance waters of the Strait of Magellan and headed north. Then, in the dark, they stopped somewhere near the coastline. One or two hundred captives were untied, and after moving their hands and feet for a while, they were thrown into the sea one by one.

This place is only three or four miles away from the coastline, and it is not a problem for the sailors to climb to the coast.

In fact, this is not the first group of Europeans that the advance fleet has "sent" ashore in this way. The ambush in the Lemaire Strait and the six or seven hundred European sailors gathered on the sea were sent to Estados Island by Cai Qian in this way. I don't know if they have been discovered by the Europeans now.

The Egret and the Swift then disappeared on the coastline. The Europeans in Greque might have been alerted because the ships that were supposed to arrive did not arrive, but no matter how imaginative the Europeans were, they would not immediately think of an enemy attack. To be honest, Guan Tianpei was very courageous, because after sending the people ashore, Guan Tianpei commanded the two motor sailing ships to change their course and turned around and ran directly towards Greque.

The eastern entrance of the Strait of Magellan is a very vast bay. Before entering the first narrow channel, the sea area is very wide, almost a circle. Greque is located on the east side of the first narrow channel, about 65 kilometers away from it, or 35 nautical miles. According to the motor sailing ship, it can still maintain a speed of about nine knots when going against the current, so the journey from the entrance to Greque is only 4 hours.

Guan Tianpei looked at the watch on his wrist. It was not yet two o'clock in the morning. They arrived at five o'clock in the morning. Even if Greck had more European warships moored, it was impossible for them to be fully prepared at this time. They could launch a surprise attack.

When Guan Tianpei proposed this plan, his deputy Zhang Bao was dumbfounded. In Zhang Bao's memory, Guan Tianpei was a very calm person, but now this plan was full of gambling. If the entrance was blocked by European warships, they would be shut in.

It can be said that Guan Tianpei's bet this time was that when the Egret and the Swift fled, they would not encounter European warships in the entrance waters. This possibility was not very high, because the Strait of Magellan was the focus of European garrison and was closely connected with the Falkland Islands. The transport ships between the two, at least the transport ships, were almost in contact every day.

Although this place is within the borders of Argentina in later generations, transporting materials from Buenos Aires to Greque is definitely not as convenient as the Falkland Islands. The former is too far away from Greque, and a transit station must be found.

As for the vast southern territory of Argentina, there are almost no cities there. No matter how many people there are in the Patagonia Plateau in the future, at this time, the Patagonia Plateau, which occupies the entire southern region of Argentina, is almost uninhabited. Even in Argentina in the 21st century, this place is sparsely populated.

At the end of the 16th century, the Spanish wanted to colonize the coastal areas of Patagonia to eliminate British pirates, but the plan to establish a colony in the Bay of San Matías failed. In 1778, Britain also tried to colonize the above-mentioned bay. The Spanish responded by first establishing two cities in Patagonia: San Jose and Viedma. From 1780 to 1807, the Spanish established a colony in Puerto Deseado, but three years later there were no European colonies in this area.

Therefore, this plateau area, which occupies nearly a quarter of Argentina's area, is unable to provide any help for the war.

In this way, Buenos Aires became the main supply port of the South Atlantic Fleet, and the Falkland Islands became the headquarters of the South Atlantic Fleet. Greco and Estados Island were the two forks extending from the Falkland Islands.

Guan Tianpei was completely gambling.

But the army implemented a one-man responsibility system, and the military chief made the final decision on everything. Guan Tianpei was determined to take such a gamble, and Zhang Bao and his men could only follow Guan Tianpei into the field.

However, just as Guan Tianpei led two motor sailing boats to Greco, at the western end of the first narrow waterway 10 kilometers away from Greco, several small boats had gently approached the beach on the shore in the dark night, under the cover of the sound of the waves.

A team of thirty elite marines and scouts quietly landed on the shore.

On a hilltop a few miles away, a series of bright lights gathered by flames were constantly scanning the surroundings. This is the searchlight of the Europeans. After Chen Han's searchlight "technology" was exposed, the Europeans also thought of their ancestor Archimedes' "death ray", and then they used the searchlight technology "with peace of mind".

Not only on some military fortresses, but also on lighthouses everywhere, the "death ray" appears frequently, just like now.

Ye Tingyang didn't know whether the Europeans had raised their vigilance now, but what he had to do now was to extinguish the Europeans' observation point in the west of the First Narrow Channel, and then let the two regiments of land forces be deployed on land. After that, even if the Europeans had discovered his large fleet, what would happen? Ye Tingyang was also happy to let the Europeans' attention shift to him, so that the Marine Corps would have a greater chance of success.

The night is a good cover for military operations. Even if there are lights shining from above, it will at most make the task force more cautious.

In this era, searchlights are all disabled and can't reach far at all, let alone one mile away, even 200 meters away is already a mess. So the advance team just needs to be careful. They have been touching the hill of the observation point, and the people above didn't notice it at all.

But for the advance team, what they really need to care about is not the European soldiers on the observation point. The Europeans did not intend to make a defensive resistance here. This is just a simple observation point. The only function is to warn in advance and inform, just like the beacon tower in the past.

With the ability of the advance team, it is easy to wipe out this outpost and make the Europeans inside unable to send any signals. But the difficulty is that they can't be sure whether there are still European secret sentries around.

Although the first narrow waterway is only 11 or 12 kilometers long, it is not possible to transmit signals with a signal flare under the current technological conditions. There must be a relay point, and this relay point is the focus of the advance team's observation. Because the latter is dark and the former is bright.

The observation points in the open are not scary, but the hidden sentries hidden in the dark are more harmful.

However, the marines of the two regiments still landed on Tierra del Fuego in the morning light of the next day. Because of the cannon sound before dawn, Guan Tianpei fired cannonballs at Greck fiercely. Although this time was very short, the sudden explosion in the east created a good opportunity for the advance team. Nearly twenty European soldiers in the entire observation post were all knocked to the ground without a sound.

Then Ye Tingyang didn't care about many things and let the large fleet directly reach the coast at the west end of the first narrow waterway, and then a full 5,000 marines were sent to Tierra del Fuego.

When Ye Tingyang heard the cannon sound from the east of the narrow waterway, he was a little confused. It is certain that Cai Qian must have successfully passed the Drake Passage, but now he actually attacked Greck with a fleet. This courage is really surprising.

You must know that the original definition of Cai Qian's fleet was just to mobilize the European fleet as much as possible and attract their targets as much as possible. And what could be more astonishing to the Europeans than shelling Greco? To shell the Falkland Islands?

But how could they know that this was Guan Tianpei's feeling that the previous split-petal plum blossom plan was not effective. They lost a motor sailing ship, which greatly reduced the results of the ambush in the Lemaire Strait. The weight of a motor sailing ship is no less than that of a third-level sailing battleship. After the two were exchanged, the effect of the ambush was only a fourth-level sailing battleship and a cruiser.

Guan Tianpei was very dissatisfied. He wanted a bigger news. Based on a certain probability, he dared to take a gamble.

Also in the morning sunshine, several steam boats of 300 to 400 tons also entered the narrow waterway. They got as close to Grek as possible, and then dropped trigger-type or open-flame-type drifting mines, which would flow straight to the exit of the narrow waterway along the seawater. Even if the Europeans set up obstacles at the exit, the trigger-type mines could not be destroyed, but what about the open-flame type?

It might be less than ten kilometers. According to the flow rate of the seawater, it would not take too long for the mines to reach Grek.

…

Ye Tingyang is a decisive person. After making up his mind, he will carry it out unswervingly. After more than 5,000 marines were sent ashore, and after the minelayers were busy for several hours, five motor sailing boats of 1,000 to 2,000 tons appeared on the route of the first narrow waterway.

Puffs of smoke rose one after another, and huge explosions that made people's eardrums burst formed a line. Five motorboats fired continuously at the safe areas on both sides of the river. The explosions were as loud as a series of thunderbolts falling from the sky, making people feel that the sound was always ringing in their ears and never stopped.

This dull and depressing explosion sound was completely different from the sound heard by people outside the artillery fort. The major commander of a certain bunker had fought for so many years, and he had never seen such fierce artillery fire as now.

However, this was just a lively fight.

In the eyes of the major commander, there was no regularity at all in the landing points of the shells. They were all over the ground, one shot from the east and one shot from the west, which was very blind. Obviously, he was not discovered by the Chinese.

Although this kind of blind bombardment without any regularity could cause certain losses to the port area, docks and urban areas, it did not pose any substantial threat to his hidden artillery fort.

It was just such a "bombardment" that made him lose an experienced artilleryman, and the thought made the major commander extremely depressed.

The latter was hit by a flying stone on the observation post of the artillery fort, and the entire observation post collapsed, and all the people inside died.

But it was not time for them to open fire yet, and the distance the Chinese warships entered was still a little short. If they were one or two kilometers closer, the main artillery fort in front would open fire. He swore to God that he would definitely entertain these visitors with extreme "enthusiasm".

...

At this time, Greck had reduced a large number of warships that had docked before, but the remaining warships were fully equipped with sailors, and all the lookouts were in place on the artillery forts and masts. The entire Greck had entered the war readiness stage.

The commander here was Cuthbert Collingwood, a British vice admiral, an energetic and sensitive commander, an artillery expert, and had unique insights into politics and diplomacy.

Cuthbert Collingwood was Nelson's good comrade-in-arms, and his current position was also arranged by Nelson with all his strength.

In the Anglo-French naval battle, the British Mediterranean Fleet commanded by Nelson did not destroy the main force of the Franco-Spanish joint fleet in one fell swoop. Of course, in the decisive battle between the two sides, Britain still won a rare victory. Nelson was promoted to admiral and earl at the same time.

But the dead Nelson became the spiritual banner of the British Navy, and the living Nelson was just an outstanding naval commander.

"Boom..."

Cuthbert Collingwood already knew the enemy appeared in the west, but before he sent the cruiser to communicate with the Falkland Islands, and if possible, to chase the warships that chased the two Chinese warships at dawn, Collingwood's ears were suddenly covered by a huge roar.

"Oh my God..." Collingwood was really startled, because this loud noise broke out when he was unprepared.

But when he walked to the window and looked at the bay, he was stunned.

"Oh my God, oh my God..."