Fox of France

While Polina was playing priestess in Athens, a French-flagged brig was sailing from Spain to Naples.

Captain Mustafa is a short Spaniard, because he often drifts at sea, his face is wrinkled by the sea wind, like a shriveled orange. He was at the steering wheel at the stern, watching the sea through binoculars. Recently, the sea has not been peaceful, and the frequency of attacks by those Barbary pirates has increased.

"Fortunately, the flag of France is flying on our mast." Mustafa comforted himself in this way.

Mustafa had spent many years as second mate on a larger ship before that. Later, during the First Coalition against France, Mustafa was involved in smuggling into France and made some money from it. Later, when the French switched to flying clippers, they sold some old-fashioned ships at a low price, and Mustafa bought the current brig.

This ship is old and not in very good condition. It may be a bit powerless to run the trans-Atlantic route, but it is still possible to run in the big bathtub of the Mediterranean Sea. Of course, compared with the new clipper ship, this slower ship will have more dangers, that is, being attacked by Barbary pirates.

So Mustafa spent money to hang the name of his ship under a French shipping company, so he obtained the legal right to use the French flag, because of well-known reasons, those pagan pirates usually come to Said it would not attack French-flagged vessels.

Although after the Spanish fleet bombarded Tripoli, the Barbary pirates also reached an agreement with the Spaniards that they would no longer harass the Spanish coast and no longer intercept Spanish ships. However, this does not mean that Spanish ships must be safe, at most it is just that the chances of being robbed have decreased.

In addition, the chances of Spanish ships being robbed are reduced, but once they are robbed, the consequences may be more serious. Before reaching an agreement with the Spaniards, the pirates would take the Spanish ships and all the crew back to North Africa, and then demand a ransom from the Spaniards. But now, doing so would be a public violation of the agreement they reached with the Spaniards, which would cause the Spanish fleet to come to their door again. Therefore, after the Barbary pirates attack Spanish ships, they often only take the ship back (the ship can't speak anyway, and it will be another ship after a change of appearance), and all the sailors on the ship will be disposed of on the spot, not at sea. . (Kill it directly and throw it into the sea) Anyway, even if it is in the Mediterranean Sea, if a ship disappears at sea, there are still many other possibilities, right?

However, Barbary pirates are generally more polite to ships flying the French flag. After all, everyone has had a long-term fighting friendship.

So although Mustafa's ship was almost the most vulnerable ship - the Barbary pirates couldn't catch up with the clippers. Nowadays, there are more flying clipper ships on the sea. Although these ships are much more expensive than ordinary sea ships, the advantages of transportation efficiency and safety make more ship owners more willing to buy these ships.

Of course, some pirates also bought clipper ships, but clipper ships cannot use artillery, and dangerous Greek fire is not available on the market, so everyone returned to the more primitive gang war. Moreover, pirates driving clipper ships cannot attack ordinary merchant ships with cannons. Therefore, pirates using clipper ships are still quite rare.

"Captain, captain, starboard, something on the starboard!" The observation post on the mast suddenly shouted.

Mustafa immediately came to starboard.

"Where?" he called.

"At eight o'clock, it's a person, a person!" the lookout post shouted.

Mustafa looked over, and he spotted the man just a few hundred meters away.

The man was holding a wooden barrel and was waving at them.

"Is it a shipwreck or was it attacked by pirates?" Mustafa thought, and asked the sailors to lower the boat to rescue the man.

The boat was let down, and several sailors quickly picked up the man holding the barrel.

"You are on this boat, what happened?" Mustafa asked.

"I am a sailor on the French cargo ship Tulip. We, we have just been attacked by Barbary pirates... This sea area is very dangerous..."

According to the sailor, they had been attacked most of the day before. When they found the two Barbary pirate ships at first, they were not particularly nervous, because Barbary pirates rarely attack ships flying the French flag. But the two pirate ships approached quickly.

At first the ship just thought the pirates hadn't seen the flags on their masts, or that some idiot had hoisted them the wrong way.

Of course, it wasn't that fool who hung the wrong flag, but the pirates came up anyway. The captain gave the order to resist.

"Captain DeLong told us that if the Barbary pirates really attacked us, they would never dare to demand a ransom from the French, or even dare to admit that they had done such a thing, so they would kill and silence us. Can resist to the end..." said the sailor.

But French merchant ships have been so safe in the Mediterranean for so long that they even reduced the number of artillery to increase cargo capacity. This makes them very weak against those pirates. Their ships were also very old and loaded with too much cargo, so although they threw a lot of cargo into the sea, they still couldn't get rid of the pirates. In the ensuing battle, the sailor fell from the ship, and no one cared about him in the heat of the battle. He also didn't know how the final outcome of the battle would be.

The news brought by the sailors made Mustafa very nervous, fearing that he would also be attacked by Barbary pirates. But his luck was better, so his clothes arrived in Naples smoothly. France has a consulate in Naples, so as soon as it docked, Mustafa took the rescued sailor and went straight to the French consulate in Naples. The Naples consulate then reported the incident to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs through the cable system. And soon, Napoleon got the news.

"They attacked French ships?" Napoleon slapped the table excitedly when he got the report, "This is really great! I wanted to repair them a long time ago! Hurry up and go to General Carnot and Admiral Treville Come to me, we are preparing for military action!"

An hour later, Carnot and Admiral Latouche Treville came to the Consulate.

The two sat down in Napoleon's office, and Napoleon asked: "On the way here, you should already know the situation. Now, I want to find out, if we want to fight the Barbary pirates, can we rush to the Olympics to start?" end the war before?"

"It's hard," Admiral Treville said. "If the Barbary pirates dare to confront us, we can wipe them out in less than a morning. But if they evade the battle, we have to get them out of the way." It takes a lot of time to find it in the vast ocean, and I don't think we can complete this task before the Olympics."

"What about attacking their ports directly?" asked Napoleon.

"Your Excellency in Power," Kano said, "I want to know, if there is a war, what do we hope to gain through the war? Only when this is confirmed, I think we can effectively answer this question."

Napoleon glanced at Carnot, nodded and said: "General Carnot, we need to obtain a foothold in North Africa where we can garrison troops and obtain a series of economic and political privileges. Such as the right to use the port and the right to sell goods. "

Kano lowered his head and thought for a while, and then said: "Your Excellency, with all due respect, to achieve this goal, it is not only a military matter, but also a political matter. I think before the Olympics, we It is impossible to complete such a task. However, Your Excellency, the Olympic Games are only two weeks away. I think it is safer to postpone it a little bit, to prepare for the war through diplomatic means, and to wait until after the Olympic Games. way of doing."

Napoleon thought for a while, and felt that Carnot's statement was reasonable, so he said to Carnot and Latouche Treville: "Two generals, this will be our first war after several years of peace. , it’s also me...Although our opponents are just some Barbary pirates, we must fight well in this battle, and we must play well to make other European countries open their eyes. Therefore, we must fight well !"