The situation of the "Queen Elizabeth" in Halifax Port is similar to what the French expected. Although Halifassax is the most important naval base in North America, the port facilities are still not comparable to those in the local ports. At most, it is only necessary to maintain cruiser-level warships. Warships like the "Queen Elizabeth" are difficult to maintain well here.

"A large part of the power of the navy comes from the ports that support it. If there is no suitable port, if the port does not have the ability to maintain warships, the combat effectiveness of the navy will be greatly reduced. Once the naval ships are damaged in battle, their combat power cannot be effectively restored. So the fleet that looks powerful becomes a kind of one-time fleet. In fact, except for us and the French, the naval fleets of other countries in the world can basically be regarded as one-time fleets. This is because once they participate in the battle, they will inevitably suffer damage, but their damage cannot be restored. Therefore, the fleet will only have complete combat effectiveness in the first battle. After an important battle, the entire fleet will

Losing combat effectiveness. In fact, if we were far away from Europe, in North America, our British fleet has become a "one-time fleet" to a large extent... I heard that the French port facilities in New Orleans are quite luxurious, with facilities that can be used to maintain the "England-Berlado-class" battleships. The French are ahead of us in this regard. If our army and the French fleet are fighting in North America, our disadvantages will be even more obvious. In addition, today, the general backwardness of the coastal defense system is also a big problem, especially the turrets in the military port. Because of backward equipment, they often do not have the ability to fight against enemy warships..." Nelson wrote down some such words in his notebook, then sighed and put down his pen.

A few days ago, he received an order from the domestic Clippers. The domestic order was ordered by the fleet to lead the fleet back to the local land as soon as possible after sending the army to Canada. Although the letter did not clearly state the situation in the local land, Nelson could think with his heel that this must be the French who were causing trouble for the United Kingdom again.

Now the "Queen Elizabeth" has not been completely repaired. In fact, in the Harbour of Halifax, the "Queen Elizabeth" will never be repaired. The British have not yet figured out what the explosion is. However, because the "Queen Elizabeth" was built, it adopted a cabin design. Although a hole was blown up under the ship, because the cabin was closed in time, the water intake was not large. The ship was just a little tilted.

After arriving in Halifax, the British first blocked the big hole that the bomb was blown out from outside, and then used a water pump to extract the water from the cabin. So, it was seen that the rolling disappeared.

However, because Halifax lacks equipment, the temporary patch is not tight and the leakage is quite serious. The pump always needs to be turned on continuously. Moreover, the patch is not strong enough. If you encounter a higher sea condition, the probability of the patch having problems is very high.

But this is also the limit that Halifax's maintenance power can achieve. Therefore, the "Queen Elizabeth" can only return with illness.

Because they were worried that the speed of the high speed would cause the patch to be damaged, the speed of the "Queen Elizabeth" was limited to only six knots, so the speed of the entire fleet was slowed down by the old virgin. Their speed suddenly dropped to the sail era.

When the British fleet arrived in Halifax, the Free Trade and Common Market were loaned to the US Navy had already received radio information from French cruisers tracking the British fleet. So they left the Cabot Strait and returned to New Orleans for maintenance.

The two ships even approached Halifax with US flags. The last time they passed by in Halifax, they already knew that the Halifax turrets used old-fashioned artillery, so the Halifax turret was not afraid of them. Steam-powered ships had an obvious weakness, that is, it took a considerable time to start the boiler - boiling water cannot boil in an instant, and the steam engine boiler is even more so. If the British army lacks preparation and the warship boilers are not pressurized, it means that they may have nearly an hour of no power. In this case, although the British fleet is far stronger than the two French supercruisers in terms of strength, the French can also use their fragile time to beat them up as the US Navy.

Because both the Free Trade and Common Market are steam-powered warships, there will be black smoke when sailing. The enemy can find them with these black smokes at a considerable distance and prepare in advance, so the French chose to approach the port at dawn. However, when approaching the port, they were still discovered by the patrol ship arranged by the British - Nelson had long been alert to this kind of situation.

While shooting fireworks to the sky, the British patrol ship rushed towards the two super cruisers, trying to use their fearless attacks to win more time for the fleet in the port.

The ending of the British patrol ship was no different from the result of the American patrol ship that launched an attack on the British fleet outside Savannah Port. The French cannons easily turned the British ship into a burning torch.

However, the sacrifice of the British patrol ships did win time for their fleet. When the two "American warships" approached Halifax, some British warships had left the port and began to discharge battle lines outside the port. There were more smoke columns rising inside the port - obviously, the plan to beat them while the British burned the boiler had failed.

So the two American warships turned lightly outside the British range, and then drove towards the south.

As for the British fleet, they did not try to pursue - none of their ships could catch up with these two "American warships".

A few days later, Nelson and General Wellesley said goodbye and embarked on a long journey back to England with the fleet.

Just as the British fleet left, a rumor spread like wildfire in the United States. The rumor claimed that the US federal government sent a special envoy to Europe. However, the envoy's mission was not to win support from European countries for the United States, but to make peace with the British government.

The rumor says that after a series of consecutive defeats, the US federal government has completely lost confidence in victory. They are preparing to cede land compensation and unconditional opening of the market to the UK, begging the British king for their forgiveness for their dare to offend Britain.

In fact, those who have a little brain and know the situation of the British today will not believe such rumors. With the current state of the UK, Americans are willing to seek peace and end the conflict, so the British are afraid that they will be so happy that they will pinch their thighs. Where else do Americans need to cede land and pay compensation?

However, there is a prerequisite for making such a judgment. This prerequisite is that the person who makes the judgment must have a brain. However, among Americans, at least among Americans of that era, there were not many people with brains, especially in the southern states.

This is actually normal. Planter owners, because of their old-fashioned production and lifestyle, generally speaking, are relatively local and know very little about changes in the outside world. One direct consequence of a closed life is that their brains will become dumb. Just like the American redneck in later generations, the king of Taoism told them that they could inject disinfectant, and they really believe that they could inject disinfectant.

Secondly, the South was seriously damaged in this war. Yes, the war originally seemed to be a matter of the north. But unexpectedly, the British navy actually came from the south. They killed people and set fire along the coastline, causing heavy losses to the south.

Because the mines purchased by the federal government later played a very important role, the British army never achieved victory like Savannah again. However, when the mines were sent here, many states in the south were already ravaged by the British.

Those guys in the south would not think that the north was less attacked because the mines they bought were in place. They felt that the reason why northern coastal cities were less attacked was because there were more northern troops. The northern troops were more because the federal government transferred all the troops of the southern states to the north, resulting in the southern states having no troops at all, so of course they could only let the British rage.

Now that the South has made such a great sacrifice, the federal government is going to treason?! This is simply like an uncle can tolerate it, and even an aunt can’t!

As a result, a large number of media reporters surrounded Jefferson and asked him if he wanted to make peace with the British, or even wanted to cede land and pay compensation from the British.

Of course, Jefferson knew that at this time, as long as he expressed any intention of compromising with the British, he would immediately usher in a political storm. If nothing else, if he really wanted to make peace with the British, Georgia would be afraid that he would immediately announce his separation from the Federation.

So of course President Jefferson immediately denied it. He told reporters that although the British had temporarily gained a little advantage by despicable attacks on civilians, the American people who were blessed by God will surely win the final victory. As for the envoys he sent, he had absolutely no contact with the British. His actions in Europe were all for more support.

However, President Jefferson's statement did not reassure the American people, because various rumors continued to emerge. This situation continued until the president's special envoy Spear returned from Europe and brought back various public or secret treaties signed with France, Spain and the Irish.

Of course, those secret treaties cannot be made public, just like those of the Americans who are fighting in Spain today; but only those treaties that can be made public, such as the alliance with the Irish, also clearly shows that the envoys sent by the President are indeed working to win the war, rather than surrender.

This certainly allowed President Jefferson to get rid of the suspicion of "American traitor". However, in order to get rid of this suspicion, President Jefferson had to exaggerate the support he received in the diplomatic field, for example, the Irish would launch a large-scale counterattack to completely win independence. This exaggeration also made the American people firmly believe that they would definitely win. Therefore, the possibility of peace talks is smaller.

Of course, it is not entirely exaggerated that the Irish will launch a large-scale counterattack. After experiencing the previous failure, the Irish have recently received a lot of assistance. They do need to conduct an offensive battle to improve their offensive battle strength and boost morale.

However, this offensive was not a "large-scale" and "decisive" level action promoted by Americans. President Russell, and their French friends, did not think that the time to launch such an action is ripe. This can be seen from the fact that this action was named "Learning Plan".

In short, the target of this attack plan is actually quite limited, that is, to constantly attack the railway across Ireland, and ultimately, it is impossible to maintain the railway side.

"The British railway is a noose around our necks. But this railway line is so long that they cannot maintain enough troops at any point. Now that we have obtained more weapons, our ability to attack has been significantly strengthened. Although we do not have the ability to quickly take down the most solid core positions, we still have the ability to quickly destroy a few small strongholds, destroy a section of railways, and take the opportunity to launch a small-scale attack." President Russell said, "We launch such an attack on the railway line every day, killing several, dozens, or even more British soldiers. If this continues, how long can this railway last?"

The reason why Russell had such confidence was largely due to another new weapon they obtained from the French - the light infantry cannon.

This is a flat-fired artillery, which adopts a series of weight reduction methods in design. For example, it has two types of barrels, a relatively short 60mm barrel (which makes its shells have limited initial velocity and relatively curved trajectory), and a longer barrel of 40mm. And each component is required to be quickly decomposed and carried by soldiers.

Although the shorter barrel makes the initial speed of this gun not high enough, it is an authentic flat-fire gun after all, used to strike bunkers and other things. It has a longer range than a recoilless gun, with higher accuracy and fire rate. Even if needed, replace it with a long 40mm caliber barrel, which can be used to ambush British armored trains at a relatively safe distance.
Chapter completed!