When Li Junwei drove his beloved car to Tangier, there were already gongs and drums, firecrackers and red flags roaring, and there were crowds of people on Tangier's beach. People opened their tents, set up telescopes, set up tables, and all kinds of refreshments and wine were placed on them. All kinds of vendors were passing through and selling all kinds of goods.

It turned out that not only the people of the empire liked to watch the fun, but also the Portuguese and Genoese in Tangier also liked to watch the fun. After the Chinese arrived, they mingled with these Europeans. Only on the beach in the distance, there was a small group of guys with long necks separated from everyone. They were Dutch.

The sea was very calm. Only with a telescope could you see that there were vague battleships arranged in the distant sea. They were the Dutch fleet from afar, with a total of twenty-three warships, including fourteen ironclad ships and nine sail heavy cruisers. A little further away, the coal ships distributed in the distance were provided with coal ships that provided supplies to these warships. After all, the Dutch fleet took the North Sea route and circled the entire Britain.

Perhaps because the battle had not started, people simply set up tables, took out cards or mahjong to activate the atmosphere first. Of course, some people directly started a bet, and the bets were about who would win the Netherlands or France. After the report of Ceuta News, everyone understood the strength of the two sides participating in the war. One side of the Dutch warships was more advanced and in a better state. The French side had a large number of warships and occupied a geographical advantage.

The people who were playing mahjong were waiting for the outbreak of the battle. At this time, a sound of salute came from the west of Tangier. A fleet broke through the waves and the entire Tangier Beach was instantly boiling. The fleet had only eight warships, but they were majestic and domineering, because this was the first cruiser of the Empire's Atlantic Fleet. When the Military Intelligence Bureau discovered that the French Navy was stationed in Vigo Bay, Li Junwei ordered the Atlantic Fleet stationed in Mingde Port to arrive immediately.

Six of the eight cruisers were Raptor-class cruisers that participated in the American War, but they were already improved, with the tonnage increased to 6,500 tons, and the power was enhanced, so that the speed could exceed 14 knots. All the equipment was replaced with 203mm front-mounted rifled guns, and they were still shipped guns, with a total of 30 guns, which were all familiar faces in the eyes of the people of Ceuta.

The other two are the fourth and fifth of the latest Dragon-class cruisers, Panlong and Yunlong, which are the first type of ocean turret cruiser in the Empire.

This is the first type of warship with a length of more than 100 meters. The waterline length reaches 100.5 meters, the width exceeds 17 meters, and the displacement reaches 8,500 tons. It uses mature single-axis propulsion and uses a twin-cylinder horizontal connecting rod reciprocating steam engine. The maximum speed reaches 15 knots. It is also the fastest among the main naval warships at present.

The most advanced part of the Dragon-class cruiser is its military equipment, which is equipped with four 305mm rifled rifled cannons, which are respectively installed in two turrets in the hull. Each cannon weighs 25 tons. The shells fired include 225 kilograms of high-explosion grenades, shrapnel and 275 kilograms of front quenching armor-piercing shells.

Because the guns are placed in the front and back, the front and rear of the ship have a forecastle and a stern, so the shooting angle in the front and rear directions is blocked. Therefore, two 178mm caliber rifled guns are each equipped at the front and rear of the hull. In order to deal with the rifled guns that appeared from Europe, the armor of the Dragon-class cruiser is also excellent. The front of the turret reaches 250mm and the side of the turret reaches 200mm, and the armor between the turret and the main deck reaches 180mm, protecting the cannon, power and chimney. The waterline armor belt is also 180mm, and after extending forward and backward, it gradually lowers a little. In addition, there is at least 250mm thick oak behind the waterline deck.

In fact, such thick armor is a bit of a fuss, but it also ensures that there is no need to worry about defense issues during the warship service.

The displacement of up to 8,500 tons is equipped with so few military equipment. In addition to pursuing turrets and heavy artillery, the most important thing is the ability to navigate from the ocean. The Imperial Navy is the world navy and must pay attention to the endurance of warships and the endurance of high seas.

Because of these requirements, the Dragon-class cruiser must be a high-freeboard warship with a freeboard of 3.65 meters, which was criticized by many people at the beginning of the design, but the facts proved that designer Pan Mingqi had the foresight.

In the early stages of early battleship design, construction and service, the Dragon-class cruiser was criticized because the Imperial Navy also invested in the design and construction of another cruiser of the same level. During the concept ship period, the Dragon-class was called the No. 1 ship, and the other was called the No. 2 ship.

The firepower and armor of the two are comparable, and the speed is almost the same. The difference is that the freeboard design of the No. 2 ship is only 2.5 meters, which was considered sufficient at the time. The difference is that the price of the No. 1 ship is 1.2 times that of the No. 2. If it were not for an accident, perhaps the main cruiser now called the Dragon class is the one with low freeboard.

During a test in the empire for 36 years, the second ship encountered strong winds and the roll reached fourteen degrees. Because of the low freeboard, the side deck began to touch the water surface. The captain immediately ordered the sails to be put away, but he still did not get rid of the bad luck. That night, the wind increased again, and the second ship rolled to eighteen degrees. Although all the officers and soldiers of the second ship and the ship engineers carried out comprehensive rescue, it was useless. The second ship capsized that night, and the entire ship was 532, and only twenty-four people survived.

The lives lost with the ship were also the designer in the navy who firmly promoted low freeboard. It was not until this happened that people realized that the full sail installation and low freeboard were completely contradictory, and that high freeboard must be maintained when the ship could not even lose the sail.

When the Atlantic Fleet arrived, they immediately greeted everyone with a salute, but soon the situation became tense, and this was a complete misunderstanding.

Fleet commander Su Jing sent two traffic boats to the beach to prepare for contact, but after the traffic boat arrived, Su Jing looked through the telescope and saw a large group of people surrounding the traffic boat. It seemed that there was a fight. So he immediately improved the combat readiness level and allowed three warships to approach the beach, even pointing the muzzle to the beach.

Seeing the crowded look, Su Jing imagined the scene that "The Netherlands or France had landed in Tangier and expelled the imperial expatriates to the beach". He immediately wanted to deter the enemy with force and prepare to evacuate the overseas Chinese with armed forces. As a result, when he was still busy, the traffic boat came back, full of food.

It turned out that it was not a crowded fight at all. It was the Chinese and Portuguese people on the beach who warmly welcomed the navy and wanted to distribute the snacks they brought to the navy. After all, this group of people who watched the fun were at least middle-class, either Ceuta's big businessmen or Moroccan landlords. Each of them was rich. Seeing that they were escorted by the navy, they wanted to repay their favor and work hard.

So the two sides had a friendship, and the naval officers and soldiers ate the dried fruit snacks given by merchants, and sometimes they could even find notes written by girls from the food bags. As for the brass and underwear stuffed by the Portuguese girls, they were still authentic. People from all over the beach ate the navy's canned fruit and pickled pepper chicken feet, and each enjoyed it.

There were also thieves naval soldiers who took the opportunity to deliver things to find an open-air casino opened on the beach and bet on betting, which soon evolved into the behavior of a certain department or even the entire ship on the ship. The naval officers and soldiers believed that predicting the victory or defeat of the Dutch and French naval was their profession, and they were much better than these ordinary people. So after the naval crew discussed, they bet on the bets, because the amount was not very large and was still within the scope of small gambling pleasure. Neither the commander of the ship nor the King Yu on the shore had stopped him.

As it turns out, the Navy is indeed professional. Most of them bet correctly, and many of the others bet wrong are also the ones who have taken the high odds.

During the military and civilian gathering on one side of the empire, both the Dutch fleet and the French fleet moved.

The weather was sunny and the view was wide, and the sea was calm. It was a good time to watch the excitement. The first thing I saw was the Dutch fleet forming a battle line. Then, the Dutch merchant ships from the Port of Ceuta left the port, and the French Atlantic Fleet also left the Gulf of Vigo, sailing westward to intercept, and the war was about to begin.

Relatively speaking, the French fleet was larger in scale, and it was a joint fleet. Among the more than 40 warships, there were ten Spanish sail battleships. The French fleet had a total of twenty-four ironclad ships, of which eight were just three- or two-deck battleships equipped with steam-powered steam, equipped with short-heavy artillery that the Imperial Navy had retired on a large scale. Its speed was only seven or eight knots, and its firepower could not penetrate the ironclad ship.

The remaining sixteen sail battleships were modified ships, which only retained one layer of artillery deck, were equipped with steam power and armor plates, and used sixty-eight-pound cannons or ninety-pound wine bottle cannons, which were all products authorized by the Empire and sold technology.

Relatively speaking, although the Dutch fleet is much smaller, its combat effectiveness is much stronger.

Among the fourteen ironclad ships, there are seven provincial frigates. The first three of these seven ships were modified with sail battleships and even purchased remaining British materials. The technical level is similar to that of the French Atlantic Fleet. However, because the high-power steam engine was used, the speed was faster, and the latter four were completely new, which was made of iron structure, stronger defense and lighter. The overall technical level of the seven warships reached the Iron Wall level.

Compared with the iron wall level, the defense and speed are not much different, and the endurance is even greater. However, the firepower is obviously different. The iron wall level is still a ship's side cannon with artillery arranged on both sides, while the seven provincial level is a hexagonal central cannon. It is equipped with only eight 100-pound wine bottle cannons in total. However, due to the reasonable layout, it can have four firepowers on the left and right, and two front and rear firepowers, which are much more advanced than the ship's side cannons, but these are smoothbore cannons, and the Imperial Iron Wall level has been replaced with 178mm front-mounted rifled cannons.

In addition to these seven new warships, there are four third-class sail battleships equipped with steam power. These four are introduced from the Empire or modified by the Empire's technology and equipment. However, the Dutch fleet is currently three collision frigates.

These three impact frigates were built by Vanderville, the commander of the Second Fleet of the Dutch Navy, former captain of the Zeland, and the eldest grandson of Heinsius. The displacement of this warship reached 3,400 tons, and used steam engines with stronger power than the seven provincial level. It was discovered in the empire that the Dutch dismantled commercial steam engines to build warships, so they simply exported some old steam engines.

Because of these three warships, Van der Weil and the Minister of the Navy, and now the commander of the Netherlands Fleet Segail, he would not have obtained these resources if it weren't for Heinsius' partiality.

The original plan for these three impact frigates was also turret-type heavy gunboats, and they had to use front-mounted rifled guns. However, the Dutch steel smelting, casting and rifling technology were not up to standard, so they could not create the imperial front-mounted rifled guns. Later, they chose to use the patented wine bottle gun technology, first casting the wine bottle gun, and then rifling the technical route. (Early American routes)

This technical route has been successful, but the problem is that the rifled guns are very heavy. They are okay as fortress guns, but they are too heavy when they are naval guns. But the Imperial Navy did not know this and thought that the Dutch had rifled guns, so they had dragon-class cruisers.

Under the threat of war, the Dutch Navy could not wait for the mature rifled gun technology, so the three impact frigates installed fifteen-inch wine bottle cannons, which weighed twenty tons and were equipped with two in total. They were all installed in the bow turret and could fire 440 pounds of solid shells and 325 pounds of flowering shells.

Of course, turret technology is not that easy to make breakthroughs, mainly because the Dutch could not buy small steam engines that provide power and bearings that require precision processing. The so-called turret is just an iron cover with a thickness of two centimeters, which is directly installed on the gun mount and relies on manpower to rotate with the gun.

The real essence of these three warships lies in the collision angle. Unlike the ships of the Imperial Navy, which generally install collision angles to improve the impact combat effectiveness, the Dutch frigate is specially designed to impact angles, and impact is the main tactic.

Van der Weill believes that impact is a means of fighting against the big with the small and defeating the strong with the weak, while the Imperial Navy has always believed that impact is just a means of steam-powered warships bullying sailing warships. This battle in Gibraltar proves that Van der Weill's philosophy is correct.

At around 2 pm, the French Navy Combined Fleet appeared outside the sea of ​​Tangier Port, taking rows of battle lines, followed by eight faster cruisers, wandering further away, as if they would rush up to take a bite at any time. At this time, the Dutch fleet became chaotic, the original battle lines were disrupted, and the battle positions changed. Some warships turned to give up routes, while others accelerated to occupy routes, as if they were adjusting their positions.
Chapter completed!