Victor Bruce no longer cares about the exposure of the fort's firepower. For the safety of the dock, he can only fire in advance. As for letting the enemy detect the firepower deployment, there is no way to avoid it now.
So the governor ordered the forts at the port to start firing to drive the Qing light cruisers away from the port.
Following Victor Bruce's order, two forts outside the port, 25 gun positions, and a total of nearly 30 305 mm caliber artillery began to bombard continuously.
This time, clusters of waves immediately formed near the light cruiser Yancheng.
Gao Yunlian saw groups of water jets rising up near his warship, and he knew that it was almost over. He could not wait here any longer, otherwise, if the enemy launched a second round of bombardment, his ship might not be so lucky.
So Gao Yunlian immediately ordered the warship to turn around and start maneuvering back and forth in a zigzag pattern to avoid the opponent's continuous bombardment and cause losses to his own warship.
Although Gao Yun Company saw the opportunity early and had already begun to retreat, the fort's defense was too tight, so there was still a 150 mm caliber shell that hit the left side of the Yancheng.
Fortunately, the Yancheng had been modified so that this shell did not penetrate the Yancheng's armor.
However, this also startled Gao Yunlian. Seeing this situation, he no longer cared about zigzagging, and directly ordered the warship to rush out of the port quickly.
Now the sailors of the Yancheng have also seen the crisis. The sailors in the boiler room have turned up the fire to the maximum, and the Yancheng has quickly reached its fastest speed of 28 knots.
However, they were still hit by two 150 mm caliber artillery pieces. One of them hit the armor and bounced off, but the other one hit the rear deck, knocking out the 155 mm caliber main gun on the front and rear decks of the Yancheng Yancheng.
Damn it.
However, as the Yancheng got further and further away from the port, the opponent's artillery progress became worse and worse.
After the Yancheng piloted by Gao Yunlian left the shooting distance of the artillery in Bombay Port, he breathed a sigh of relief.
However, after all this trouble, Liu Da had a clear understanding of the situation of the Bombay Port fort on the battleship Huangdi.
The fort here has indeed been in operation for many years.
The current fort is divided into left and right parts. The left fort has 14 305 mm caliber artillery. In addition, there are more than 20 280 mm caliber artillery, and then some 150 mm caliber light artillery.
The right turret is almost the same as the left turret, but there are two more 305 mm caliber cannons, bringing the number of 305 mm caliber fortress guns in the right turret to 16.
These two forts are like two arms, firmly protecting the port in their arms. If these two forts are not destroyed, the fleet will not be able to approach the other side's dock.
If the navies of other powerful countries in the world want to capture this fort, they must shoot at it, and they will probably suffer heavy losses.
And the navies of various countries will not be foolish enough to go head-to-head with such a fortress. After all, the navies all have a common sense, that is, if they use naval guns to attack the fortress cannons, they are naturally at a disadvantage?
But at this point, Liu Hai's navy has no such scruples.
Because the four battleships of the Nanyang Navy Squadron that came this time were Yihua-class battleships.
These four battleships are much stronger than the opponent's fortress guns in terms of shooting accuracy and range.
After Liu Da learned about the actual firepower equipment of the opponent's fort, he ordered the entire fleet to be divided into two columns, with four Yiyihua-class battleships in one column, and prepared to bombard the right fort.
In the other column, two Sovereign-class battleships, leading ironclads and cruisers, lined up on the left side of the four Iowa-class battleships to form an escort to prevent the enemy from attacking the four Iowa-class battleships.
In this way, the entire fleet began to move slowly following Liu Da's order.
Governor Victor Bruce, who was on the fort, saw the Qing Dynasty's fleet approaching the fort and knew that the other side was about to attack.
He immediately ordered the right fort to enter the palace with all its strength, and the left fort also turned its guns to support the right fort.
At the same time, the British governor also knew that there was no need to hide anymore, so he ordered ten temporarily reinforced concrete forts built outside the port to start supporting the right fort.
Although this temporary fort was built temporarily, it also used reinforced concrete, and 10 220 mm caliber artillery pieces were installed in the fort.
For these 10 large-caliber artillery pieces, the Governor gathered all the army's artillery pieces with a caliber above 200 mm to complete this reserve fort.
However, when their three forts tried to fire their cannons, they finally discovered that the Qing fleet had stopped advancing beyond the range of the cannons.
Those little soldiers didn't know why they were still there, ready to fire as soon as the opponent came into range. When the staff officers beside the governor saw this situation, they understood what the opponent was planning.
"Sir, I'm afraid something is wrong."
Victor Bruce was observing the Qing fleet from a distance with a telescope. He also saw something fishy on the other side, so he asked: "What is the other side's plan?"
"Your Majesty the Governor, I am afraid that the Qing fleet wants to bombard our forts beyond the range of our naval guns."
"This is impossible. Our country's artillery is the most advanced in the world. It is impossible to have cannons with a longer range than ours."
Naval staff officer, you also took a telescope and looked at the four behemoths in the distance, and finally frowned and said: "Last year, we fought a battle with the Qing Navy in the South China Sea, and the news we got was that the other side had
Four behemoths, and the cannons of these four battleships are very powerful and have a very long range."
At this point, the staff officer frowned and said in frustration: "These four behemoths in front are probably the four battleships mentioned in the intelligence."
When Victor Bruce heard this, he felt trembling in his heart. Now Mumbai's defense relies on the two forts on the left and right sides of Mumbai. If these two forts are destroyed by the other side, then Mumbai will no longer have any defense.
"Is there any way to offset the opponent's range?"
Several staff officers behind the governor laughed bitterly when they heard this sentence. If the battle was on land, they could still make a detour, and it might be possible to destroy the opponent's artillery position.
But this was a battle on the sea. Their own fleet had already avoided losses and had withdrawn to the north. Now they had nothing to do against the Qing fleet.
Victor Bruce just asked with hope. Now that he saw that all his staff members were silent, he knew that there was nothing they could do.
Victor Bruce now began to pray to God, hoping that the opponent's general would accidentally enter his range and be hit by the artillery on his own fort, so that he could force the opponent to leave the sea area.
But his idea soon came to nothing. Liu Da was no fool. How could he run within the range of the opponent's artillery and engage in a bombardment with the fortress artillery?
The four Yihua-class battleships headed by the Huangdi stopped advancing when they reached a distance of 10 kilometers from the right fort, and then lined up in a battle line, with each battleship's 9 406mm guns
caliber naval gun aimed at the right battery.
Liu Da looked at the fort with a telescope, and then ordered his messenger: "Test fire one round."
Following Liu Da's order, the Huangdi first fired a 406 mm caliber artillery shell.
Since the Huangdi battleship had a primitive gun sighting radar, this shell exploded 20 meters in front of the right battery.
Liu Hai saw the accurate target with his telescope and nodded with satisfaction, "Modify the data and start firing."
With the modification of radar and computer data, the artillery of the four Iowa-class battleships began to make slight adjustments, and then the Yellow Emperor began to fire a salvo.
In the first salvo, the fleet led by Liu Da let the opponent know the gap between the two sides' shelling. The 35 shells fired this time completely covered the right fort in an instant.
Of these 35 nearly one-ton artillery shells, three accurately hit the reinforced concrete bunkers of three 305 mm caliber cannons.
After being hit by giant cannons, these three bunkers were thrown into the sky like toys. In addition to various stones, there were also many artillery parts and human body fragments mixed in.
Victor Bruce saw this situation in the distance and couldn't help but drop the telescope in his hand.
Although the Governor has realized that his fort will not be the opponent's opponent, he did not expect that his side would suffer such heavy losses in the first round of shelling. I am afraid that after several rounds of shelling, his right side will be damaged.
The fort is probably doomed.
The staff officer next to the governor saw this situation and hurriedly suggested, "Mr. Governor, I'm afraid the right fort can't hold on for long. Now we should let the army come to the front immediately to prevent the opponent from landing after defeating the right fort.
Fight."
Victor Bruce was hesitant after hearing this. He could clearly see the ferocity of the opponent's artillery, which could be said to be unprecedented. Once the army entered the battlefield, it could be said that it would be the opponent's target.
"My Lord Governor, we can no longer have any mercy. The Port of Maimon is already the last port on the mainland. Once it is occupied or destroyed by the other party, there will be no place to stand after our expedition fleet arrives. We can only
It was intercepted at sea by the opponent and finally dragged down."
When Victor Bruce heard this, his eyes became gloomy for a while. He knew that in order to maintain the existence of Meng Port, he could only take human lives to do so.