A beautiful carriage, escorted by a group of cavalry, hurried into the urban area of Nanshui Port and stopped in front of the gate of the city hall.
The consul, tax collector and others who had been waiting here for a long time saw the man getting out of the carriage and immediately saluted respectfully: "Your Majesty the Marquis! You are finally back!"
"How is the situation?" Marquis Augustine Leibert looked tired and walked into the door first, asking without looking back.
His voice echoed in the empty corridor, accompanied by the sound of the densely packed leather boots hitting the marble floor.
The mayor who answered him looked relaxed and started talking about the sudden good news: "Yesterday... two enemy warships in the outer sea suddenly left."
"Your Majesty the Earl is truly a man of command all over the world. As soon as you came back, those enemies fled on their own!" Next to him, the tax officer quickly flattered him and said congratulations with a flattering look on his face.
"Leaved?" The count paused, and the expression on his face became solemn. However, he didn't say anything more and walked forward again.
The mayor personally helped the count open the door to his office. The mayor bent slightly and said, "Yes, they left. They left after bombarding our port and paralyzing our dock."
The count hung the cloak on the hanger and asked in a very dissatisfied tone: "They rushed into the port?"
He really didn't expect that his hometown, Nanshui Port, would suffer such serious losses. He also didn't expect that on his way back, enemy warships would break into Nanshui Port.
Under normal circumstances, naval warships will not easily break into the port and cause trouble. Because they will face harassment from shore artillery batteries, they may suffer unnecessary losses.
Unless the advantage is very obvious, or you really want to destroy the port and land a landing, you will choose to attack the port regardless of losses.
Who would have thought that the other party would be so bold as to enter the port and cause huge losses to his Nanshui Port.
The mayor looked a little embarrassed. He didn't expect that the other party would smash his port pier before leaving, so he said depressedly: "Yes, our fort couldn't stop their attack at all. The other party rushed in and opened fire
After about 20 shots, he stormed off again."
Leibot didn't mean to blame. He also knew that these things today were all caused by his own greed.
So he walked back to his desk and asked casually: "Is the damage to the dock serious?"
"It's not particularly serious. It's just that the shipwreck is troublesome and needs to be cleaned up." The mayor immediately replied, "I've already sent someone to deal with it."
"How many days will it take to repair?" Leibert asked anxiously, because before coming back, he had already understood the damage to Nanshui Port. Every day, he lost real money.
What's even more terrifying is that once his factory shuts down, the state machinery will run slowly, and the foreign expansion that His Majesty the King desires will be put on hold indefinitely, which is even more unbearable for him!
Many merchant ships that sailed south from Nanshui Port lost their money, and countless metals and gold coins sank to the bottom of the sea, becoming his losses.
Such losses were countless and far exceeded his estimate - it was completely impossible to measure them all in gold coins.
The mayor's face became even more embarrassed, and he stammered in reply: "About seven or eight days, maybe ten days..."
"Do you know why these two battleships left?" Marquis Leibert was silent for a few seconds, and finally stopped worrying about the damage to the port, but then asked again.
Everyone shook their heads, and the mayor had to explain again: "I don't know, there's no way to confirm, the other party didn't mean to communicate with us, they just sent that note."
"..." Leibert remained silent, obviously angry.
So the mayor quickly introduced some good news: "In order to defend the port, we have mobilized 1,000 soldiers from the surrounding areas, but the other party does not seem to have any intention of landing."
"Two battleships, how many people can be on board? They probably won't be able to land, but we can't afford to block the port." Reibert snorted coldly, dismissing the mayor's explanation.
He thought for a few more seconds, and then continued to ask a question that embarrassed everyone: "By the way, how many ships have we lost these days?"
"Back to the Marquis, we have made a rough count and found that there are about 270 merchant ships and transport ships of various sizes, as well as armed merchant ships..." The mayor had no choice but to continue to answer.
Leibert was shocked, stared at the mayor, and exclaimed: "So many?"
"It's hard to say." The mayor lowered his head and replied softly.
"What do you mean?" Leibert asked fiercely as he was about to go berserk.
The mayor quickly explained: "We can only roughly calculate the number of ships that should have returned in these days. As a result, none of the ships that should have returned have returned, so we can only speculate that they should have been sunk."
"..." Leibot's chest rose and fell, and he didn't know what to say.
The mayor considered his words and continued: "However, it is possible that some fleets did not return on time for some reason, or they returned to other ports..."
After glancing at Leibert, he wisely closed his mouth.
Leibot's face was gloomy, and he asked as if he wanted to eat people: "In other words, in less than a month, we lost almost one-third of our sea-going ships, lost control of the sea, and were attacked
Sunk more than a dozen warships?”
The mayor's answer this time was straightforward, because the 12 warships were sunk, but it had nothing to do with him: "Yes, sir, according to the news from the Port of Osa, they did send 12 warships south.
Nanshui supported us... However, the other party destroyed this fleet."
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! "12 battleships...plus the 2 battleships we left in the South Water...it really makes people hate it." Leibert thought that he just owed
After receiving 100,000 gold coins from Datang Group, I felt like my teeth were itching.
At worst, I can just pay back 120,000 gold coins, including the interest, isn't it? As for playing so big?
Just when he was thinking about whether he should find someone to settle the money and send 200,000 gold coins to give Datang Group a face, an officer bit the bullet and said: "Your Majesty the Marquis."
"Huh?" He looked at the officer with a bandage on his arm, waiting for him to continue.
The officer timidly handed over a piece of paper with the questions written on it, and began to report: "There is another report here, which talks about..."
"Just tell me! What is it?" Marquis Leibert had no intention of reaching out to take it, and asked impatiently.
"On the northern coast of the port, some fishermen saw black smoke on the sea level..." The officer carefully mentioned a location, as if hoping that the Marquis could think of the follow-up questions on his own.
Augustine Leibert is not a fool. After hearing this report, he immediately grasped the key point of this sentence: "North?"
"Yes, North." The officer was obviously relieved and nodded again.
"Ossa...damn it!" Sure enough, Augustine Leibert realized that something was wrong. He suddenly stood up straight, as if he had been electrocuted.
The next second, he immediately pointed to the door and ordered loudly: "Quick! Quick! Send people to Osa! Hurry up! Send the message as quickly as possible! Alert the navy in Osa Port! Let them leave as soon as possible.
!”
He didn't want the fleet deployed by Osa to be blocked by two enemy ships and then completely wiped out in the harbor!
That is one of the few mobile maritime forces that can be directly mobilized on the long coastline of the Yangmu Kingdom!
If this fleet is sunk by the enemy, then such a long coastline, including Nanshui Port, will basically be in a naked state.
Therefore, he must let this fleet leave Osa Port immediately, hide, and engage in naval battles when it is more worthwhile to invest to reverse the situation of the war.
Before the mayor could react, he asked with a puzzled look on his face: "Leave Ossa? Leave Ossa, where are you going?"
The Marquis couldn't help but roar. He slapped the table and shouted loudly: "Go around in a big circle! Go around to the open sea, and then go south here!"
"Sir, sir... calm down!" the mayor cautiously advised: "If this happens, will your Majesty be suspicious... that the fleet over there is used to threaten..."
In his opinion, without the permission of His Majesty the King, directly transferring the warships back to defend the South China Sea and completely abandoning Ossa, this is simply using a public weapon for private use and is an intolerable wrong decision.
But the Marquis no longer cared about His Majesty the King's feelings, because he was fed up with the passive feeling of being unable to mobilize troops to respond due to lack of information.
Therefore, he continued to yell: "What a threat! If we let them go further north, it will be even slower for us to contact them! If we can't keep up with the speed of delivering messages, and if we don't respond in time, it will be even more dangerous! Hurry!
Do as I say!"
If the Osa fleet is finished, he will hardly have to explain to His Majesty the King - look at the factories that have stopped production and are waiting for raw materials. He has now made the entire kingdom lose the ability to expand externally.
Without restoring such ability, he, the Marquis, would definitely not be able to hold his position, and he would not be able to hold his position either. He would rather make the king doubt him than make the emperor feel that he is incompetent!
The mayor finally reacted and agreed: "Yes! Yes! I understand, sir. I, I will send someone to deliver the order right now!"
Slumped down in his seat, Marquis Leibert closed his eyes tiredly, leaned on the back of his chair, and whispered: "Son, oh son...it's time to rely on you... Never, don't
