Fox of France

Now that Napoleon has disclosed part of the truth, the whole country, and everyone who knows the truth, will naturally firmly support France in "fulfilling its international responsibilities" and protecting "the free flow of world trade routes." Preparations for the expedition began immediately in France.

With France's current strength, it is quite easy to send a fleet that can suppress the two British sailing frigates in Cape Town. It is enough to send two colonial cruisers. Although the colonial cruiser has no armor, it is still powered by steam, and it still overwhelms the sail frigate in terms of speed and sailing ability. As for firepower, the two sides are not of the same magnitude. Although in terms of the number of cannons, the British sailing frigates have more cannons, but the 75mm rear-loaded rifled guns of the colonial cruisers far exceed the British sailing frigates in terms of power, range, and rate of fire. of.

Moreover, because the colonial cruiser saves armor and has smaller artillery, the coal tank is also larger than the armored cruiser. That is to say, the colonial cruiser is actually superior to the armored cruiser in terms of range, and even the larger battleship. Second only to Super Cruisers.

Obviously, the super cruiser cannot be used for this matter, because it is too eye-catching to do so. Everyone should make a fortune quietly, don't shoot casually, and don't make everyone notice that our actions are unusual, that's not good. Therefore, the troops sent by France should not be too eye-catching. Therefore, colonial cruisers are the best choice.

However, the number can be slightly relaxed, so the Navy selected three relatively new colonial cruisers, and leased two from the "Europa Shipping Alliance" (in fact, a shipping industry syndicate formed by those smuggling ship merchants in France back then). A passenger-cargo ship for carrying men and weapons; a pure cargo ship for transporting coal for the fleet to and from. After all, although South Africa also has coal resources, at this time, these resources are still in an undeveloped state. Moreover, limited by the distance, there are also infrastructure problems. In a short period of time, the development of resources such as coal and iron ore in Africa is not yet on the agenda. The French navy itself does not have many transport ships, and their maritime power relies more on civilian power. Transnational syndicates like the "Europa Shipping Alliance" are an important part of France's maritime power.

Everyone can see what ships are being moved by the navy; the army is much better, and the best personnel and equipment can be used. If it weren't for worrying about being too eye-catching, if it wasn't for the fact that France had just declared war on Britain, some field marshals wanted to lead the team in person. Of course, it is impossible to send a field marshal to such a small battlefield, but those who are sent are still relatively well-known people in the army. One is that everyone trusts them more, and the other is that they are allowed to gild - anyway, the possibility of failure in this battle is unlikely.

Napoleon's marshals are generally young and have no suitable heirs who can perform such tasks. But there are still many suitable relatives for them. And this time, Major Leon Berthier, the commander in charge of the land battle in this expedition, is a relative of Marshal Berthier.

Therefore, when the person carrying Babel's letter arrived in France, the French expeditionary force had already made all the preparations. Even the French army's expeditionary battalion had practiced in an old abandoned bastion. It's been an attacking tactic for a long time.

So as soon as the Dutch immigrants in southern Africa asked for help, the French dispatched the fleet at an astonishingly high speed. Of course, the Netherlands, the former overlord of Cape Town, also sent a company of land forces, and rented a mixed passenger and cargo ship from the "Europa Shipping Alliance" to travel to South Africa with the French fleet.

This fleet is all steam ships, which can maintain a speed of fourteen knots during the entire voyage. But even so, it still took 24 days for the fleet to arrive in the waters near South Africa after departure. But compared to the age of sail, this is already the speed of the wind.

On this day, the two sailing cruisers of the British came to the Saldanha Bay again. This is the key area for their investigation, because it is the most suitable area for building a harbor in terms of hydrological conditions alone. The last port that the Dutch rebels tried to build was in this area.

The British knew exactly what these Dutchmen wanted to do, and they definitely wanted to use such a port to transport some special large-scale things, such as cannons or something.

And although there is no telegram, it is impossible to know the situation in Europe, but from the interrogation of the rebels, the British in Cape Town at least know this news-there is a huge conflict between France and the United Kingdom, and war may start at any time, even war May have exploded.

The British in Cape Town have been exacerbated by events since that no British ships have entered Cape Town's port for a long time. This unusual sign seems to prove one point: Britain and France are already at war, and the British are at a disadvantage at sea.

If this guess is true, then the follow-up is easy to guess. The Dutch may take the opportunity to send an army to Cape Town in an attempt to retake the port.

The British army didn't think much of the combat effectiveness of the Netherlands army, but they also knew that because of the gap in equipment, they couldn't even defeat the Dutch militia in field battles. The only thing they could rely on was the fortress. And once the Dutch Expeditionary Force brought new cannons, even if there were only one or two cannons, they could pose a huge threat to them by relying on the range and accuracy far exceeding the old-fashioned iron cannons.

Therefore, the two sail frigates of the British and some other small warships have been very busy during this period of time patrolling along the coast, searching for ports that the Dutch may be building. The Gulf of Saldanha is the most important investigation area.

The two British frigates made a circle in the bay and found nothing unusual-the port facilities cannot be hidden. So they turned to the exit of the bay, ready to leave the bay. At this moment, the lookout post saw several rows of smoke columns from a distance.

"Spot steamer, at one o'clock!" cried the lookout on the mast.

Another problem with steam ships compared to sail ships is that the signs are too obvious when sailing. So at least in the daytime, under normal circumstances, sailboats can always spot steamships first. Although it is definitely impossible to fight, but the sea is so big, if the sailboat wants to run, the steamboat may not be able to catch them.

But the current situation is a bit bad, because they are now in a narrow bay. If they are blocked by those steam ships in the bay, it will be really difficult to fly.

What's even more troublesome is that the outlet of this bay is facing west, and the wind direction in this area has always been very stable-it is located in the westerly belt, and the westerly wind is all year round.

The sails of sail frigates are mainly horizontal sails, which can provide very good propulsion when the wind is downwind, but when the wind is headwind, the horizontal sails are not easy to use, so at this time you can only use the bow The jib on the gaff to provide power. In this case, the speed will naturally not increase. For example, these two sail frigates can run at a speed of about twelve knots when the wind is down, but in the case of headwinds, they can only run at a speed of about three knots now. Moreover, this speed actually has to be discounted, because when sailing against the wind, it is necessary to continuously follow a "zigzag" route instead of a straight line. So although it is only a little more than two nautical miles away from the entrance of the bay, it is not certain whether it is possible to escape from the exit of the bay before entering the sight of the steamship.

Both frigates stowed their mainsails, unfurled their jibs, and sailed towards the entrance of the bay.

Because of the blockage of the terrain in the bay, the wind is not too strong, which greatly slows down the speed of the ship. In order to speed up the ship and escape the bay before the steam ship, the British had to run a lot of things into the bay. In the sea, in order to reduce the load of the ship, they even pushed the bow and stern guns into the sea. If it weren't for the fact that the cannons in the closed gun deck couldn't be pushed out, they might have lost all these things.

To say that this approach still has a little effect, after throwing a lot of loads, the speed of the two ships has increased a little bit.

In many cases, a little bit faster, even a little bit, is the difference between life and death. The two ships ran out of the bay before the steam fleet arrived, and when the French fleet entered the bay, they could still see some of the things that they had thrown away and were still floating on the water.