Fox of France

"Are you crazy? Do you want to die? Didn't you see the size of that British fleet? Did you see that big guy? 'Queen Elizabeth'! The cannons in our hands, even at zero distance, may not be able to It can move her armor, and her armor is thick. Otherwise, why would the British give her the name of an old maid? That 'spinster' and 'Virgin Queen' have a lot of lovers, and they don't know how many illegitimate children they have. Hell, if we are hit by a shell from her, we will be completely toy. Besides, how long can we stop her? We can't stop her for five minutes! I must be responsible for the lives of this ship and everyone on board!" A Lang Captain Matsu's eyes widened.

"Captain, even if it's only five minutes, more people will be able to escape." Major Francis said.

Alençon wanted to retort: ​​"That's all Americans, it's none of my business!" But after thinking about it, he still said: "You're right, we can't just do nothing."

So he turned his head and ordered: "Accelerate, raise the British flag, and get the front main gun ready. We are going to fire at Savannah...fire the warning. Use the semaphore to inform the "Fengyue" and take the same action as us."

This is the limit of what they can do for Americans.

At this time, the British lookout posts had already spotted the two French cruisers flying the tricolor flag.

"Damn it, you can meet Frenchmen anywhere!" Captain Hardy of the "Queen Elizabeth" cursed as he put down his binoculars. He knew that these two ships were mostly ships that the French subleased to the Americans as mentioned in the intelligence. So he'd love to pounce on it, take a shot, and send these Frenchies out to sea to feed the sharks. But these two ships are now flying the French flag, which makes him a little uncertain about the identity of the two ships. What if, what if this is something else, a ship that has not been chartered to the Americans?

When they set off, the British had already considered what to do if they encountered a French warship, or even encountered a provocation by a French warship. In the Seven Years War, of course, this would not have been a problem at all. But now, the United Kingdom is obviously out of weakness, because the cabinet requires the navy to exercise restraint and patience. As long as the French do not engage in substantive hostilities, or to put it more clearly, as long as the French do not take the initiative to open fire on the British, the British should not take the initiative to attack or even take the initiative to make any provocative actions to avoid the situation complication.

"France now has very strong land power in Louisiana. Once they find an excuse and join the war, Canada will definitely not be able to keep it. Even Ireland, there will be changes. So the navy must exercise restraint, restraint!" This is Prime Minister Pete Jr.'s speech to the officers as the fleet departed.

But then, the behavior of the two French ships immediately stunned the British—the two French ships actually raised the flag of St. George. Well, not the St. George's ensign, the little red pennant that signifies the gallantry and despair of battleships, but the St. George's ensign for England! Isn't this pretending to be the British Navy in front of the authentic British Navy? Is there such an operation?

"The French don't want to fight us. They know very well that they can't fight us with just two colonial cruisers. It's just death." General Nelson also walked out of the cabin at this time, "I think they want to give The Americans in Savannah sounded the warning—they put up our flag and fired a shot at Savannah—that was an inventive move. The French..."

"General, do we want to stop them? They are blatantly pretending to be us. In theory, we can treat them as pirates." Captain Hardy asked.

"No, it's only 20 minutes at most anyway. This time can't change anything. We don't need to make extra troubles for this." Nelson replied.

Just as Nelson expected, two French warships, flying the St. George's flag of the British Navy, opened fire on Savannah. After two shots, they lowered the St. George's flag and hoisted the tricolor in the presence of the British.

"When the French really can be shameless, they must be shameless." Captain Hardy scolded.

"Hadi, in fact, to be honest, we are the same. The history of mankind is the history of struggles between shameless idiots and shameless villains. The result of the struggle has always been the shameless villains. Idiots. There is no country that exists today that is not a shameless villain." Nelson sighed.

"General, let's put it this way, the competition between us and France is to see who can be more shameless?"

"Haha, kinda." Nelson laughed. "I hope we can finally say that the French are so stupid! Hahaha."

On the cruiser "Kazuki", the soldiers had just put away the St. George's flag and hoisted the tricolor flag.

"Captain, look, the American gunboat has left the port!"

Captain Alençon looked towards the port, and saw two small steamers slowly sailing out of the port. This kind of ship is a small gunboat built by the Americans for patrol near the port. The displacement does not exceed 400 tons, the speed does not exceed 10 knots, and it is equipped with a small 76 mm caliber gun. This gun is fixed on the front deck in the open air, completely uncovered and unobstructed.

Captain Alençon had seen this kind of small gunboat the last time he moored in Savannah. The anti-smuggling team at the port of Savannah has five or six of these gunboats, and two of them are usually in a state where the boiler is lit and ready to move at any time. But this is useless, such a ship, let alone facing the British fleet. Even compared with the French colonial cruisers, it is a small thing that is not worth mentioning.

At this time, the "Kazuki" had already changed its flag, but Captain Alençon ordered to speed up to avoid the two little things leaving the port. Although he guessed that as long as the people on those two little things were not blind or foolish, he should have noticed the forest-like smoke column that appeared to the east, and he had also seen that he had raised the French flag again, so he naturally knew that he had just fired. The two crooked cannons were not intended to bombard the city, but to warn that the British fleet had arrived.

But considering that, relying on such two small boats and two small cannons, he dared to rush out. There must be a bunch of iron fools on it. What if they just didn't understand what was going on and fired at themselves, what should they do? Therefore, Captain Alençon's order is completely justified.

The two iron hanhans did not chase after the French, but instead raised the signal flag to express their gratitude to the French. It seems that the Tie Hanhan above can still understand the actions of the French. Then they rushed towards the smoke pillar forest. Obviously, when the two small gunboats came out of the port, the target was the British fleet.

"It's for death. It didn't even take two or three minutes for the British to destroy them. The time they can win is simply too late for the ships in the port to escape." Captain Alençon said.

At this time, the British fleet was getting closer. This little time is useless at all. Most of the steamships in Savannah Harbor are in a state of flameout, and the boilers are fired and pressurized. It takes less than an hour for the ships to move, so there is no need to think about it. As for those sail-powered merchant ships, most of their sailors are not on board. At this time, there are not a few hours, and they don't think they can find enough sailors to drive the ship out for their lives. Therefore, it was really useless for Tie Hanhan to rush forward.

What happened later was exactly as Captain Alençon expected. Rows of water jets suddenly appeared around the two iron and simple gunboats. Immediately afterwards, the first gunboat was hit by a shell.

This shell directly destroyed the steam engine of the small gunboat, and the small gunboat collapsed on the sea surface, and within half a minute after that, it was hit by five or six shells, the whole ship tilted over, and soon sank go down.

The second Tiehanhan was slightly stronger, and he managed to fire a shot-of course, this shot missed anything-and then was torn to pieces by the British fire.

At this time, "Huayue" and "Fengyue" have already walked a certain distance. The two boats began to slow down, ready to watch the battle. Yes, in this era, watching naval battles is really a very common thing.

"Captain, are we really not doing anything?" Major Francis asked.

"No, of course we can't do nothing." Captain Alençon said, "We want to watch the battle from the sidelines. When there are foreign warships watching, some of their actions may be able to restrain themselves. Well, mine You know, my friend, if we go up and fight the British, we won't last any longer than those two gunboats. But if we just stand by and watch, their violence may be curtailed a little."

"Oh, those two American ships were really... so brave. But they died too badly." Copa, the first mate at the side, sighed.

"Oh, Copa, you know, I met a Mexican priest in New Orleans. He told me a very interesting thing. He said that all people die, just in different ways, meaning It's different. Some people's death is as important as the Rocky Mountains; while some people's death is as light as a feather. In fact, the same is true for warships. All warships have their deaths. Whether it died on the battlefield or in a shipbreaking yard. But if a warship dies for the benefit of the people, it is heavier than the Rocky Mountains; When a person dies, he is lighter than a feather."

"The priest you speak of is not a heretic of revolutionary theology?" said Copa.

"Ah, who knows? Anyway, Mexico is full of people who believe in revolutionary theology now..."

While they were talking, the British fleet had already deployed outside the port, blocking the exit of the port. Not a single ship is now able to leave Savannah harbor.